


There there

by thebookhunter



Series: The ballad of Victor Trevor [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, First Time, I'm really not into angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Not a happy ending I'm afraid, Now let's see, Pre-Canon, Romance, The Holmes brothers fuck up spectacularly, This is the middle of a series, University, Velvet Goldmine - Freeform, Virgin!Sherlock, and you might hate me less by part 3, but the story is the story, just saying', oh and Victor is a sex god, relationship, there somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-01-23 19:19:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1576613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebookhunter/pseuds/thebookhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor Trevor finds the man he wants to love for the rest of his life. Unfortunately for him.<br/>Sherlock Holmes has had drilled into his brain that caring is not an advantage. Unfortunately for him too.<br/>Mycroft Holmes' brain cannot be trusted in the matters of his brother's heart. Unfortunately for everyone.</p><p>It doesn't bode well, but it explains a few things.</p><p>---</p><p>I took this bit from the ACD canon and ran wild.</p><p>     "You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He was the only friend I made during the two years I was at college. (…) At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of the long vacation."...</p><p>(ACD, The adventure of the Gloria Scott)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which sparks fly
> 
> "There’s this boy. He’s in the very middle of the dancing area. What little light there is sparkles in his shirt and teeth and hair. He’s dancing by himself with joy and abandon, his moves smooth, liquid-graceful, sharp. He has command of the room, a wide space around him and a keen audience, which he ignores with the poise of an Olympian deity. He’s absolutely ravishing. Sherlock has been trying to not look at him so much for a while now."

 

      So this is a college party. Sherlock has seen them advertised on fliers and handmade posters again and again, and never once thought that he would take himself to one. Doesn’t appear to be anything to write home about at the moment. The place is an underground multipurpose hall in the Chemistry faculty, soulless and dull. The sound system is cheap, it slaughters the bass line and massacres the mix; he has been hard pressed to make himself pick up one of the ready-filled plastic cups with (grimace) a poor substitute for vodka and… is that supposed to be lemonade? There’s tables and chairs pushed up against the walls and people perching atop the piles in little groups. There’s dancing in the centre of the hall, and couples making out dotted all over the place.

      Sherlock knows nobody here. He has asked earlier if Seb Wilkes or any of his mates were coming, and has been quite relieved to hear that they were giving it a miss. Armed with the knowledge that there would be no need for forced interactions, he’s put on a pair of dark jeans and a white shirt that he knows won’t draw any attention. By all means, he’s told himself many times, always avoid t-shirts with slogans or, god forbid, band names, because they’re infallible conversation starters. And now he is happy, so to speak, to be left alone in a corner, as far away from the speakers as he can get, not far from the exit. He has no intention of doing anything but blending into the background, chain smoking and sipping his awful drink.

      He doesn’t really know why he has come, but the thought that he was missing something that gave Mycroft an edge over him had been nagging at Sherlock for a while now, and a squabble they had over the phone earlier this week had been the last straw. He was not, in any way, trying to be like Mycroft, and not trying to prove anything, not at all, but rather making sure he had at least a glimpse of the kind of things other people experienced in college, for intellectual purposes if nothing else. And Mycroft and his world-weary scorn could go fuck themselves a lot.

      He has noticed some stares. There are two girls who are trying to drill him to the wall with their eyes. He makes a point of not going into any staring contest. So his eyes fly here and there and don’t rest for long on anything or anybody. Until, well.

      There’s this boy. He’s in the very middle of the dancing area. What little light there is sparkles in his shirt and teeth and hair. He’s dancing by himself with joy and abandon, his moves smooth, liquid-graceful, sharp. He has command of the room, a wide space around him and a keen audience, which he ignores with the poise of an Olympian deity. He’s absolutely ravishing. Sherlock has been trying to not look at him so much for a while now.

      Now a couple moves in and trap the dancer between their bodies, the girl in front of him, the boy on his back. The dancer doesn’t even open his eyes. When they sense his acquiescence, the couple put their hands on him.The girl grabs his neck, the boy wraps around his waist. The dancer, taller than both, hooks one arm behind the man’s neck and places the other on the girl’s hip,  and they start to move like practiced companions, their bodies glued together pretty much from head to toe.

      Sherlock is enthralled. So is everybody else. Sherlock catches lip-licking and full-body appraisals among the audience, and it’s quite interesting to watch really, although not as much as the trio’s little display, three pairs of hips snaking together as one. The dancer’s expression, serious, concentrated, has Sherlock utterly entranced. Sherlock notices he’s been biting his lip and he doesn’t know for how long, but it has to be quite a while, because he’s feeling the pinch. A couple that was making out next to Sherlock has stopped to watch the show.

      “Who is he?” asks the girl to her boyfriend, her eyes wide.

       “It’s that fucking Victor Trevor” says the boyfriend, his voice seething with jealousy.

       The girl conceals a half-smile from her man and, even after he bends to kiss her again, Sherlock can still see her peeking over her boyfriend’s shoulder.

      The action on the dance floor is getting heated. The girl pulls the dancer’s face down to kiss him, tongue first - and oh, the boyfriend’s expression as he watches them over the dancer’s shoulder. For a second it looks like the dancer is going along with it, but then he gently pulls back with a sweet, commiserating smile, squeezes away from between their bodies, kisses the back of both his partner’s hands like a fucking Musketeer, and escapes, leaving the couple looking dumbfounded and disappointed, and quite conspicuous.

      The dancer reclaims again his space and just moves, quick and smooth and elegant, unselfconscious and supreme. Sherlock finds himself smiling and he doesn’t know why.

      Sherlock knows the song that comes up next. It’s melancholy and angry and has a strange, menacing atmosphere. The dancer knows it too. He mouths the words while he spins and shakes to the music, swaying his head with abandon.

 

_In pitch dark_

_I go walking in your landscape_

_Broken branches_

_Trip me as a I speak_

      The dancer looks up for a second. His gaze find Sherlock’s. Sherlock feels a shiver when the dancer’s eyes brush over his body, head to toe, and back again. They stare straight into each other’s eyes with intensity while the dancer mouths in silence:

_Just ‘cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there_

_Just ‘cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there_

 

      The dancer takes two steps towards Sherlock, and beckons to him with one hand. Sherlock’s is startled, his heart pounding harder than the bass line in his ears. The dancer is moving, enticing him, waiting for him, his stare still fixed on Sherlock’s eyes.

_There’s always a siren_

_Singing you to shipwreck_

_(Don’t reach out, don’t reach out_

      Sherlock’s mind is racing, pulled in twenty directions at once.

_Don’t reach out, don’t reach out)_

 

_Steer away from these rocks_

_We’d be a walking disaster_

_(Don’t reach out, don’t reach out_

    In the end it comes down to just this one thing: why not.

_Don’t reach out, don’t reach out)_

 

_Just ‘cause you feel it_

_Doesn’t mean it’s there_

_(Someone on your shoulder,_

     Why the fuck not.

_Someone on your shoulder)_

 

_Just ‘cause you feel it_

_Doesn’t mean it’s there_

      Sherlock puts his drink down and walks over to the dance floor, under the intent eyes of the dancer.

_(Someone on your shoulder,_

_Someone on your shoulder)_

 

      They meet in his space. (People are watching.) They get together and move.

 

_There there!_

 

      The song gets angrier, their movements quick and abrupt. Sherlock feels the mental equivalent of white noise starting to inundate his head, dispelling all self-consciousness and all illusion of control. He closes his eyes and lets go. He lets his body do whatever feels right. It’s exhilarating.

_Why so green and lonely?_

_Lonely lonely_

      He can sense the dancer close, responding to his movements. They’re not touching except when they unintentionally brush or clash. Each and every one of this touches Sherlock feels like a jolt, but he doesn’t have the urge to reel or to pull back and he doesn’t stop.

_Heaven sent you to me_

_To me to me_

       The song turns harsh, ragged, discordant. They’re dancing closer now, their bodies touching again and again. Sherlock can smell him. Dunhill cigarettes, outrageously posh Tom Ford soap, an undertone of flesh, like clay. When he dares open his eyes for a second, the dancer is just here, inches away. Collarbones, neck, strong jawline, sharp cheekbones, his face an array of stark lights and shadows. Sherlock can feel the heat radiating from his body. Their eyes meet.

 

  _We are accidents waiting_

_Waiting to happen_

      The dancer’s eyes are very clear, piercing.  

  _We are accidents waiting_

_Waiting to happen_

 

       They stop moving. The dancer reaches for Sherlock’s hand. It’s warm and dry and it blows a fuse in Sherlock’s brain.

  
       The songs quiets down and another one starts over its last notes. Sherlock turns on his feet and strides away and out of the place, his heart pounding. He looks back once. The dancer’s still inquisitive gaze overwhelms him. He stumbles away down the dimly lit corridor, his pace nervous, just short of running. He says the name once to himself. Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is "There there" by Radiohead. It came out in 2003, which is a few years too late for the timeline of the show (especially if you base Sherlock's age more or less on Ben's age, which people does.) So I decided to make my boys younger (my age, so that I don't have to make up the details of college life before my time and risk blowing it up miserably)  
> If you listen to the song while reading the dancing scene, it should fall really well with the text (it does in my ears!)
> 
> What else: 
> 
> 1\. Canonical Victor and Sherlock probably went to Oxbridge, but I didn't. So, instead of researching and then giving a second-hand version of what I think college life is in those places, I decided to base this upon my own experiences and leave the details a bit fuzzy.
> 
> 2\. In the early noughties, people could still smoke indoors. In bars, in dorm rooms, in restaurants, and definitely in college parties. I know, right? Demented. Uncivilised times!
> 
> 3\. In the early noughties, such a thing as mobile phones existed, and SMS and stuff. Smart phones did not. iPods eventually came out, but I grew up on Walkmans first, and portable CD players after. This is the kind of primitive technology our heroes have to make do with. Again, I'm leaving the details fuzzy on purpose. If you're in the mood to start splitting hairs, I wouldn't bother with this fic.
> 
> 4\. English is not my first language. The dialect of English I write in should be mainly British (I live in England) probably with some Americanisms (too many American movies and songs!) Just in case you wonder about things like British spelling clashing with American expressions. I'm Catalan, and there is only so many of this language-y things I can notice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which impressions are made.
> 
> “So you know everything about me” says Victor, collecting himself, lighting a cigarette. “Tell me something about you.”

 

       They spot each other often after that night. Sherlock did not see him all that clearly at the party, but there is no doubt: nobody else looks at Sherlock like that. The dancer himself (Victor, his name is Victor) is not easy to miss, with his shock of blond curls, his height, his fluid grace, and the spotlight that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. Sherlock seems to be always aware of him when he’s near. He occupies an inordinate amount of space in his mind. It’s quite discombobulating.

        He’s usually surrounded by what Sherlock calls his retinue, a group of four or five boys and a couple of girls all dressed more or less the same, too pretty, too clean, too wholesome for their shabby-chic, groungy attires. He’s barely ever without them, and he is obviously the axis of the group. Sherlock recognises them from the party. They seem to orbit him as if he had his own gravitational pull.  Sherlock has felt it. It curves and bends the space around him. His presence affects the colour of the walls. Sherlock is at a complete loss about him, about how he does this, any of this.

 

        He sees Seb Wilkes and his mates stop and talk to him a couple of times on the green. Next time he’s stuck with Seb after Maths, Sherlock makes sure to steer the conversation his way, with discretion he believes. International Law. Excellent grades. New money. Father in the city, metal and information industries. Boring. Everything about Victor should be boring, except he isn’t. Not at all. Not for one minute.

 

*    *    *           

       Sherlock turns the corner of the corridor and spots him straight away: Victor is leaning on the wall by the door of Sherlock’s dorm room. Sherlock manages to amble on casually, at least he thinks so. As he approaches Victor, he needs to swallow several times.  His throat is bone dry. He’s pretty sure he’s pulling off the nonchalant look though. He’s always been a good actor. He’s thorough.

       Victor is staring at him with a little smile. Another two steps.

       “Sherlock” he says.

       Sherlock’s eyelids flicker several times. His name in Victor’s soft, warm voice sounds like nothing he’s heard before, removed from him, and new, and alien, and yet so intimate.

       “Victor” he responds. And this little mutual confession makes them both smile.

 

        He lets him in. While Sherlock stows away his bag and books in a cupboard, he spies out of the corner of his eye as Victor surveys the room and has a rummage through his things. There’s two beds separated by a narrow corridor, but Sherlock doesn’t have a roommate, so the one bed is unmade and all the stuff piled up on every flat surface belongs to Sherlock. Victor spots the skull, picks it up, inspects it, turns it this way and that, casts a raised eyebrow and an inquisitive eye towards Sherlock.

       “Billy. A friend,” says Sherlock.

        Victor grins and puts the skull down where he found it.

        “You’re a bit of a mystery, Sherlock,” he says.

        “Am I?”

       “Oh yes. I’ve been trying to find out more about you. Chemistry and weird, that’s about all I’ve got.”   

       “Sounds accurate.” Sherlock smirks, knowing he’s looking smug and not bothered to hide it, which might or might not be what is making Victor smile in turn.

       Victor sits himself on Sherlock’s bed, reclines against the wall, crosses his legs at the ankles. He looks right at home. Sherlock sits at the desk chair.

       “What have you got about me?” asks Victor, lighting up a cigarette and offering it to Sherlock.

        “Law degree. Money.” Sherlock takes a drag, trying not to dwell on the fact that his lips are now where Victor’s have just been. “Overcompensating father, probably because of the death of your mother when you were a child. Might or might not explain the drug problems. Cocaine. You used to play a string instrument, I’m betting on the guitar. You’re a vegetarian. You skipped your first class this morning.”

       Victor stares at him in silence, with a slight frown, smoke slowly escaping his parted lips.

       “How do you know all this?”

       “I observe. The degree is of no consequence. I could find out a hundred different ways. The money is perfectly obvious too. Your sunglasses alone cost a fortune. And the faded t-shirt and the posh jeans worn off at the knees and hems? You don’t need to prove anything, that’s how rich your father is. Then there’s the soap and aftershave you use, 300 pounds a pop.” Sherlock takes a drag and carries on. “That ring on your left hand is a woman’s wedding band, it barely fits your little finger. Likely your mother’s. If she was alive she’d have it still or would have got rid of it. So no divorce. Your father could have kept it, but she probably specified that it should go to you. You were old enough to remember and understand, because you never take it off. I’d say you were at least 12.” Puff of smoke. “You’re one year older than the rest of your classmates. It could have been that you took an extra-long gap year, but I think it’s more likely that there was some sort of obstacle. The other day at the party several members of your group were high, but you were not. At your age, in your circle, the balance of probability is you had a drug problem. Cocaine is a good bet, with the people you hang out with, although it’s unlikely that it was the only thing you did. So, rehab. You must be feeling very strong to risk relapsing by hanging out with people who use. Or the circumstances in your life have changed substantially, so much so that you feel you’re not at risk. Your father adores you but doesn’t know what to do with you because he’s showering you with expensive stuff you show very little interest in. He obviously feels guilty and he probably blames the drugs  on himself. He’s overcompensating. Perhaps that is what has changed and that’s why you feel safe around drugs.” Sherlock takes a drag and ashes the cigarette. “The callosities on your fingertips are from playing a string instrument, and by looking at you, I’d say you’ve always wanted to be a pop star, so guitar it is. But you haven’t practiced in a while.” One last drag.  “The relatively fresh traces on the bottom and back legs of your jeans suggest you’ve been on the green today. But it’s been raining since 10 this morning, so you left the dorm to go to a class – it’s unlikely that you wouldn’t get up so early for any other reason-, and then changed your mind.” Sherlock stubs the cigarette on a dirty plate.

       Victor’s eyes are open wide, his eyebrows arched up in surprise.

       “...and vegetarian?” he asks.

       “An educated guess. Greenpeace t-shirts. And you just look the type. ”

       Victor is still quiet. He rests his head on the wall, a little smile on his face, his eyebrows still a perfect arch of dazzlement. Now is when they usually storm out, swearing at him very loudly, thinks Sherlock. Goodbye then.

       “Is it just me or can you do that with anybody?” Victor says at last.

       “Anybody.”

       “Good, I thought I might be embarrassingly transparent.” He chuckles. He doesn’t seem about to run away hurling insults.

        Sherlock smiles in spite of himself.

        “No worse than others” he concedes. “Did I get anything wrong?”

        Victor rubs his curls.

        “I was 10. When mom died. And I’m mostly vegetarian. Mostly. Oh, and the traces of grass... did you just admit you were checking my arse?”

        Sherlock blushes bright red. Victor laughs with relish. He sure has a lot of teeth.

        “So you know everything about me” says Victor, collecting himself, lighting a cigarette. “Tell me something about you.”

         

*    *    *

        They talk for over three hours. They smoke all the cigarettes in the room. Sherlock is puzzled by Victor. Nothing Sherlock says seems to shock him or freak him out. Instead, it appears as if everything surprises and delights him. The criminology files. The psychopath profiles. The crime scene photos. His experiments with mould, dust and ash. The perfume collection. He seems to find Sherlock pleasant company. This is unheard of. Nobody finds Sherlock pleasant company. Yet all the signs are there. He looks at him in the eye with warmth. He never lets the conversation die. He laughs wholeheartedly and often. Sherlock’s snarky remarks and insensitive conversational faux-pas slide off him like water off the back of a duck. He either throws him a humorous evil glare or he laughs it off, unoffended. Victor radiates something when he laughs. Sherlock wishes he could measure it, perhaps bottle it.

        It’s dark when Victor leaves, with a kind smile and bloodshot eyes from all the smoke. Sherlock looks at him from the doorway as he walks down the corridor. Victor stretches his arms and back like a big cat, unaware that Sherlock is still looking. A sliver of his lower back flashes under the jumper. Sherlock shuts the door and looks at the dip Victor has left in his bedding. He feels very strange. He tries to narrow it down and put a name to it. He doesn’t get anywhere near.

       That night he doesn’t sleep either. He advances his analysis of ash, attempting to sort out samples from the ashtray they’ve filled that evening. He touches the pile of ash a couple of times, how soft it feels, how it coats his fingertips, and if it makes him smile it is only marginally related to the image if conveys in his mind of Victor laughing with his tongue between his teeth and with his eyes.

       He does get into bed at some point. The bed where Victor has been sitting at for three hours. He doesn’t give that much thought at all. Not at all. Not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, one million thanks to Cloisteredself for all her suggestions, corrections, bad English spotting, support, ideas and encouragement.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Victor proves that he can dance to absolutely anything, and Sherlock gets to answer questions nobody asked.
> 
> “You have...” Sherlock frowns “fucked men, obviously.”
> 
> “Abundantly” his grin so sweet.
> 
> Sherlock looks him in the eye.
> 
> “I haven’t done anything. With anyone” he confesses.
> 
> “Yes, I guessed as much” says Victor, holding his stare. A brief pause ensues. “Do you want to?” he asks then, peering at him with a glint in his eye.

 

        Next time he sees Victor, he’s with his retinue. They are lying on the green, enjoying the first sunshine of Spring, looking like a herd of supermodels posing for a Calvin Klein photoshoot. Victor lowers his sunglasses to peek at Sherlock, gets up and strides gracefully towards him.

        “Want to sit down with us?” Victor offers.

        “No.”

        “Ok.” He’s unfazed. “Want to meet up later? Just me and you.”

        Sherlock hesitates. He has questions, specifications, but he can’t quite begin to formulate them.

        “We could grab a cup of coffee” says Victor, seeing Sherlock confused.

        Sherlock looks around, pondering his answer. Victor waits as if there was all the time in the world and his patience was infinite.

        “Alright” says Sherlock.

        “Come and find me at my place when you’re ready. Sort of... around 4? Do you know where my flat is?”

        “Yes.”

        “I thought so” how bright is his smile, how kind. “See you later then”

 

***

 

       They go to a bar on campus. It’s big and industrial, with long white formica tables, fluorescent lights, boards plastered over with handmade flyers. There are not many patrons at this time of the day. They grab their coffees at the bar and find a spot by a window. They take it more or less where they left it the other evening in Sherlock’s room. Somehow, they end up here:

        “So you’re gay” says Sherlock.

        Victor nods.

        “Do you have a boyfriend?”

        “Not at the moment, no.”

        Sherlock mulls this over. 

        “So what are you, Sherlock?” 

        “I don’t know that I am anything.” 

        Victor smiles from behind a veil of smoke.

         “You’ll figure it out sooner or later” he says.

         “Is it obligatory?”

         Victor chuckles his velvety laugh. “I suppose not.” 

         “When did you find out?” asks Sherlock.

         Victor considers this one for a bit. 

        “I think I’ve always known.”

        “You said you went out with girls.”

        “Yeah, well, peer pressure, curiosity” Victor dismisses it with a wave of his hand. There’s more to it than this, but he obviously doesn’t feel like going on about it.

        “But did you...?” Sherlock stumbles upon this one. Victor lets him complete the thought. Perhaps he just wants to hear him say it. Sherlock tries “...Sleep with any?”

       Victor beams. That wasn’t all that bad now, was it.

        “No sleeping, no” he replies. “Fucking, yeah” huge, angelic smile full of teeth.

        Sherlock reclines in his chair, reflective.

        “Was it any good?” he asks at large.

        Victor puts out his cigarette.

        “I came every time, if that’s what you’re asking.” Victor says, with frankness.

        “That’s not what I’m asking. I don’t think so anyway” says Sherlock.

        Victor deliberates. Has a sip of coffee. Expands his answer.

        “I think... It’s not so much what you do and it’s not what you get, it’s what you want. I didn’t want them, not really. So, no, I suppose it didn’t feel too good. Not as good as it can be, that’s for sure.”

        “You have...” Sherlock frowns “fucked men, obviously.”

        “Abundantly” his grin so sweet.

        Sherlock looks him in the eye.

        “I haven’t done anything. With anyone” he confesses.

        “Yes, I guessed as much” says Victor, holding his stare. A brief pause ensues. “Do you want to?” he asks then, peering at him with a glint in his eye.

        Sherlock blushes and breaks eye contact.

       “I don’t know.”

        Victor smiles at him.

        “That’s alright.” Lights another cigarette. “When you want it, you’ll know.” He takes another sip of his coffee. A grimace. “This is cold. Shall we go?”

***         

       They go out for dinner and a movie, once, twice. It becomes a habit. There’s a Chinese place they both like, and then there’s that pub, and the cinema where they play old classics. They become regulars. They go clubbing once. Sherlock hates it. They don’t go again. They get drunk and smoke pot and play Brahms and Mozart and Bach and Händl, Lou Reed and David Bowie, Radiohead and Solomon Burke. Sherlock plays the violin for Victor. Victor refuses to play the guitar after that, no matter how often he is asked. They watch DVDs in Victor’s bedroom. They both like Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. Victor has a thing for Blade Runner. Sherlock suspects it’s Rutger Hauer.

       And when Sherlock goes into one of his moods, Victor pulls back and gives him time and space. Sherlock does wonder what Victor does while he shuts himself up in his room with an experiment or in his head for a few days in a row. He doesn’t tell him about the coke, but he thinks Victor knows.

       They fall asleep in the same bed more times than they can count, wake up with pasty mouths and a nicotine hangover. They don’t study half as much as they should, but they get by.

***

       He sees Victor with a boy, one of the blokes from his retinue, groping on a bench by the green. He doesn’t like it. He can’t stop watching. The open-mouthed kissing. The other boy’s hand under Victor’s t-shirt, the other dipping under the waistband of his jeans, reaching for Victor’s arse. The boy’s face in Victor’s neck. Victor’s face, his eyes half-closed, his expression serious and far removed. Victor’s hands on that boy’s waist, in that boy’s hair.

        Sherlock feels something out of place inside, like an extra bone, pushing, poking, dislodging things. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it’s disagreeable. He wishes he could stop thinking about it, but his mind keeps coming back to it, like the tip of the tongue probing at a mouth sore. 

       He means to say something about it to Victor at some point, clarify some things. He never does. 

***

       “This is ridiculous” says Sherlock. “You can’t dance to Beethoven!”

       “Oh, no? Watch me!”

        This first movement is perky and quick and it can almost be heard as a polka. Victor grabs Sherlock’s waist and drags him along the small space between the beds, spins him around, and retrace their steps, skimping. Sherlock is being manhandled, pushed, shoved and spun, and he can’t stop laughing. There is not enough room and they keep bumping into everything, toppling things over, their balance already precarious in their fits of hysterics. They tumble onto the mattresses several times and pull each other up again.

        The second movement is slow and romantic. Victor places Sherlock’s hands on his shoulders and pulls him close by the hips. Sherlock is a bit disconcerted but goes along with it, panting from their previous exertions, feeling Victor’s breath on his neck. Victor is humming the tune in his mellow, silken voice. Sherlock shuts his eyes. They sway together for what feels like an eternity. The sweat is evaporating from their skin and Sherlock feels the goosebumps break up on his neck and arms. And Victor’s body is so warm close to his, the t-shirt soft under his hands, his flesh so firm, his bones so hard.

       The piece ends. The CD player hums and falls silent.

        “I told you I could dance to Beethoven” mutters Victor to the bit of skin under Sherlock’s ear. Then pulls back, looks at Sherlock fondly, smiles to Sherlock’s frown. Lets go of him. It feels cold around his waist where Victor’s hands have been.

       “ I better go now.” Victor says.

       Sherlock doesn’t see why it should be better, but he watches without protest as Victor picks up his things, throws him one last kind smile, and goes.

       Not for the first time in the last few weeks, Sherlock is tempted to pick up the phone and run all this by Mycroft. He reads people like an open book, and it’s not like Sherlock has anybody else to talk to. Perhaps he could help him figure out what is going on. Of course, he doesn’t.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to Cloisteredself for her hard work in helping me with this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which discoveries of many types are made.
> 
> 'Sherlock realises, with a rush of vertigo, that something is happening very quickly in that room, and that he’s not in control of it.
> 
> Victor sits up. Takes a breath.
> 
> “Can I kiss you?” he says.'

        It’s a warm afternoon. They’re in Sherlock’s room, each slouched on one of the beds, facing each other. Sherlock has been ranting about his classmates for a while now, deducing the trifling details of their lives for Victor’s entertainment, making him laugh with all his heart. Sherlock becomes entranced by how Victor’s laughter affects his whole face, and he tries to sort out the individual details, the wrinkles around his eyes, the pink tongue darting between his teeth.

        Looking back, he’ll pinpoint this as the moment when he realised that Victor is beautiful. It’s not that he hasn’t noticed before. He could appreciate the symmetry of the strong lines of his face and the elegance of his lean body, and has no problems recognizing harmony and grace when he sees them. But so is true for mountains and tigers and statues and the night sky, and that’s how he used to think of Victor’s appearance, if at all: pleasing but without consequence. What Sherlock sees now has nothing to do with symmetry and everything to do with the imperfections of his skin, the hard feel of his broad shoulders under Sherlock’s hands when they danced, the low, warm, silky rasp of his voice, the kindness in his eyes, his expansive laughter. It feels real, immediate. It has a smell, a temperature, it palpitates. _(It’s nothing like a mountain, is it?) Shut up Mycroft!_

        And while Sherlock was lost in thought, Victor has stopped laughing. There’s still animation in his face, but of a different kind altogether. A loaded squint in his eye. Sherlock holds his stare.

        Their eyes lock for a whole eternity of the world.

        Sherlock realises, with a rush of vertigo, that something is happening very quickly in that room, and that he’s not in control of it.

        Victor sits up. Takes a breath.

        “Can I kiss you?” he says.

        Sherlock is startled. He knows he shouldn’t be. He is anyway. He can’t look at him now. He wants to. He doesn’t know what he’d say if he could talk. His brain is buffering.

        Victor shuffles closer to the edge of the bed, closer to Sherlock. Sherlock makes himself look up. It’s a titanic effort. Victor puts a hand on Sherlock's face, brushes a thumb on his cheekbone.

        “Can I kiss you?” he repeats, very softly.

        Sherlock nods, his sight low. Victor lifts his face up and kisses him. Sherlock believes this is called a peck. Quite harmless, Sherlock thinks, anticlimactic. _(What were you expecting? Fireworks?) Shut up, Mycroft!_

        Victor examines Sherlock’s face. He is smiling with fondness, probably because Sherlock has not flown into a panic. He leans in once more, holding Sherlock’s face with both hands this time, and kisses him again, working Sherlock’s plump lips with an open mouth, and moisture occurs. Sherlock’s stomach takes a plunge. Well, it isn’t fireworks, but it is definitely something.

        Sherlock’s lips part of their own accord and Victor’s tongue slides in, making Sherlock flinch. Victor pulls away.

        “Alright? Do you want me to stop?”

        Sherlock remembers a dare with a girl from school. Touching tongues. He never lost, he was never the one to back off in horror. But he would have never believed in a million years that people did this for fun.

        His brow knits up for a second. He thinks he could pull out now. He didn't ask for this. His heart is beating hard in his chest, a knot of nerves in his stomach, heavy as lead. Why do this, what is the use, what is the purpose.

        But Victor's eyes look three different shades of green at that distance.

        No, there is no point to this. Sherlock leans closer and kisses him. Victor parts his mouth and now it's Sherlock's tongue seeking his, timidly at first. Victor makes a sound which can only be described as a purr. Interesting.

        They both start sliding towards the edge of their respective beds, trying to get closer, two pairs of remarkably long legs struggling to get out of each other’s way. Victor laughs. Sherlock laughs too, and he knot in his belly loosens up.

        Victor gets up and sits next to him. “Come here” he murmurs, guiding Sherlock's legs around his waist. “Alright?”

        Sherlock swallows thickly. Their crotches are almost in contact, but not quite. Sherlock notices that Victor’s lips are reddened and a bit swollen, the edges of his mouth blurred into a flush of pink. It’s fascinating. Do Sherlock’s lips look the same? He almost rushes to check himself in the mirror, but Victor’s hands, now around his neck, are holding him in place.

       "Are you alright, Sherlock?"

       “I’m not a swooning maiden” says Sherlock, with as much defiance as he can muster with a choke in his voice.

        Victor smiles, then squints with humour.

        “Really?” he says, his voice gravelly. “Show me.”

        Sherlock launches for his mouth. Victor is taken by surprise at the ferocity of the attack, but he doesn’t seem put off, and responds in  kind. They plunder and knead each other’s lips for a while, heat and pressure building up in their underbellies, making them writhe and push their hardening cocks together.

        “I hadn’t made out like that in years” says Victor, panting, when they take a second.

        “No? What is it that you do then?”

        Victor chuckles, because apparently the question is hilarious, and then narrows his eyes down to a mischievous slit.

        “Want me to show you?”

        Sherlock considers it for a second, serious.

        “Yes.”

        Victor's smile has the devil in it now.

        “Lie down” he mutters, his voice a silky murmur, as he pushes Sherlock onto his back. On all fours, he leans over him. “Hm. I think it’s time I went for your neck. I’d start right here.” He puts his lips on the dip between Sherlock’s collarbones and strokes with his lips. Sherlock gulps. Then Victor makes his way up, trailing open-mouthed kisses until just under the ear, a sprinkle of hard stubble adding an edge to the sensation. Sherlock becomes aware of his own breathing, superficial and quickened. His cock is twitching. Victor bites and sucks his earlobe, his nose tickles in his ear. That makes Sherlock gasp. Victor proceeds to kiss, nuzzle and lightly bite his way to the other side of Sherlock’ neck, while Sherlock claws at the sheets and whimpers.

        Victor pulls back a bit and smiles.       

        "Very promising” he says.

        “What is?”

        “Your reactions.”

        Sherlock is not sure whether he is mocking him.

        “What now?” he says, his voice a tad strangled.

        Victor thinks this is quite fun too, and quite endearing, judging by his expression, sweet and full of humour. He eyes him up and down with hunger, making Sherlock's stomach do a flip.

        “I’d take your t-shirt off and I’d touch you” mutters Victor, his tone as soft and warm as his lips. His eyes lock on Sherlock’s. “Can I touch you?” he says. Sherlock nods. Victor's eyes so intent on his. “Say it. Ask me" he instructs.

       “Yes," says Sherlock, with a hitch in his voice, his eyes wide "touch me.”

        Victor sits on his heels and slides his hands under Sherlock’s t-shirt. He drags it up and off, warm, dry palms raising a trail of goosebumps in their wake. Sherlock lifts his arms to help. Victor's hands stroke up and down on Sherlock’s sides, where the skin is most sensitive, then over his chest and stomach. With his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s, he bends over him and flicks his tongue on a nipple. Sherlock gasps. Victor licks very slowly, circling, circling, flicking, then he sucks. Sherlock’s head springs backwards, a heavy exhale turning into a whimper. Now Victor goes for the other nipple, while he keeps brushing the first lightly with his thumb. Sherlock is breathing hard and fast now and his cock is throbbing in his pants. Victor lifts his face to check Sherlock’s expression. Sherlock’s eyes spring open.

        “I’m alright” he says sharply.

        “Yes, I think you are” hums Victor.

        “Then why do you stop?”

        Victor laughs, awfully pleased.

        “Because I love to watch you like this” he purrs. Sherlock’s breath catches again. “And because there are other things I want to do to you” his low murmur shoots hot lava through Sherlock’s crotch.

        “What things?” he chokes out.

        “Hm” Victor seems to be pondering that question, when he appears to become distracted, his hands idling up and down Sherlock’s thighs, his eyes, wide and fevered, wandering over Sherlock’s body. “God” he sighs then, “you’re so fucking beautiful.”

        Sherlock has been called many things. Beautiful, never. The expression on Victor’s face puzzles him, his eyes heavy-lidded and glazed, his mouth parted, the slight frown. So what does he see? How is Sherlock doing that to him?

        Victor takes his t-shirt off, slow and deliberate. It's not the first time Sherlock's seen him like that, but it is the first time he is _watching_. Victor is lean, but not as thin as he is. His muscles have been shaped by the gym and by simple physical exertion, his skin paler than that on his golden face.There's a wisp of hair on his chest and another under his navel. His small, dark nipples, are hardened by arousal. Sherlock takes it all in, feeling his own chest heaving with heavy, quickened breathing. He thinks his own eyes might have become quite glazed right now as well, as his mouth opens and he licks his lips, without him willing it.

        “Put your hands on me Sherlock” says Victor, his voice muffled in velvet.

        “Where?” says Sherlock with a dry throat.

        That makes Victor laugh.

        “Anywhere you want.”

        Sherlock considers this for a minute. He tentatively holds Victor’s waist. He is instantly fascinated by how firm it feels, how smooth. Flesh is flesh. It should feel like his, but it simply doesn't. He presses and rubs. He reaches to brush his palm on the wisp of hair on Victor’s chest, then the downwards trail under his navel. His movements are far from sensual, he is simply exploring, but Victor’s belly undulates like the body of a snake under his touch, which surprises him. He bites his lip and he reaches for Victor’s nipples.

        “Wait” says Victor. While pinning him down with a scorching stare, he grabs Sherlock’s hand and leads it inside his mouth, sucking the fingers wet, making Sherlock's cock twitch. “Do it now” Victor whispers.

        Sherlock takes a second to refocus, then he brushes his fingertips on Victor’s nipples, and he arches into it, biting his lip. Sherlock rubs a bit harder, and this time he gets a hiss. This is fascinating. He sits up, now impatient, and sucks and licks Victor’s nipples; this one first (faint whimpering), then the other.

        “Fuuuuuck” Victor gasps, clawing his hands at Sherlock’s hair as the onslaught continues. They’re both sitting up now, Victor’s back arching backwards. Victor’s cock is hard against Sherlock’s. Sherlock palms it through the jeans.

        “Fuck, Shhhh...” Victor pushes him back, breathing hard.

        Sherlock looks up, confused.

        “What? Not good?”

         Victor is panting, stroking Sherlock’s hair. He’s smiling with his eyes almost shut.

         “What are you doing to me” he chuckles, looking at Sherlock in a kind of daze, his hand idling on the back of Sherlock’s neck.

        He pulls him close again and kisses him, and Sherlock returns it with fever. They wrap around each other and they fall back on the bed, Victor on top. The kiss gets heated and urgent. Victor starts plundering Sherlock’s mouth, neck, collarbones, nipples, his thigh pressing and rubbing against Sherlock’s crotch, his hands clenching Sherlock's hair tight. Victor’s heat and smell and flesh and sounds are everywhere, all around him. It’s overwhelming.

        Suddenly, Sherlock feels suffocated, trapped. A wave of sickliness surges from the depth of his stomach. He sees sparks in his eyes. Blackness. Nausea.

        “No, wait” he pushes Victor off and sits up. Victor sits up too and puts a hand on his back. Sherlock shakes it off. He regrets it immediately.

        A good few minutes elapse. When Sherlock opens his eyes at last, he sees Victor looking at him with a frown of concern.

        “I don’t know what’s wrong with me” Sherlock scoffs. He has blurted it out just like that. He’d never thought he’d say it out loud. Not that Victor could fathom the true, far-reaching extent of what he is saying.

        Victor tilts his head to see his face. He raises his hand tentatively, doesn’t dare to touch him. Sherlock’s throat knots tight at that. He huffs in frustration. He was expecting this, the anxiety attack. It doesn’t make it one bit easier.

        “There’s nothing wrong with you, Sherlock.” says Victor, his voice soft. “You just... panicked. It happens.”

        “Has it ever happened to you?” snaps Sherlock.

        There’s an undertone of sadness to the smile Victor gives him now.

        “Don’t compare yourself to me. I’m a slut.” He laughs it off, but Sherlock senses a deeper edge to this. He frowns.

        “You’re normal” he says.

        “What the fuck does that mean?”

        “It means...” Sherlock curses and gives up. Where to start.

        “Sherlock, look at me.” Seeks his eyes. “There is nothing wrong with you, ok? Maybe you just don’t want to do this right now.”

        “No, I do!” he rubs his eyes tiredly. “I want to get this over and done with.”

         Victor frowns. Begins to say something, stops himself.

        “What?” Sherlock snaps.

        “Is this...?” A deep breath. “What is this, Sherlock?”

        “What do you mean?”

         Victor struggles to find the words for a second, and he looks as if the effort is exhausting him, because his tone is weary when he speaks next.

        “Do you want me? Or are you just trying to tick an item off the to-do list, or what?”

        Sherlock gapes, shuts his mouth. Turns his face away. He mutters “I don’t know. I don’t know what this is” under his breath. He doesn’t say he is too messed up to have a to-do list. He doesn’t say he would never had considered writing ‘sex’ on it, even hypothetically, until he had met him. He feels tongue-tied, inept and stupid, things crumbling all around him and no idea how to stop it.

        “Oh, fuck” says Victor. He pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them, possibly unaware of the defensive stance it expresses. Sherlock does notice. In his mind, he reaches for him. He doesn’t move one bit, tied down by dark things within that tell him that he is not needed, that his pathetic attempts to help would do fuck all, that nothing good ever comes from him.

        Sherlock realises there’s many things going on in Victor’s head at this moment, and loathes himself for not being able to make sense of them. He’s shit at people. How would Mycroft taunt him for it. He looks at Victor’s face, trying to read something in it, anything, frustration flaring because he gets little else beyond... what’s that, hurt? Worry?

        “Victor?” he probes, after a while.

        Victor smiles that sad smile his eyes seem made for. He’s collecting himself.

        “I love you, Sherlock” he says.

        Sherlock blinks once, twice, opens his mouth, shuts it.

        Well, that didn’t help very much at all.

        “Forget it.” Victor sighs. “I need to...” he looks grim. He gets up. “I have to go.”

        “No!” that was a shriek. Sherlock grabs his wrist. “Don’t.”

        They both look at Sherlock’s hand as if it was a strange creature with a mind of its own. Then Victor is looking down at him and his face is kind and unhappy. Sherlock tries to think quickly. He guides Victor’s hand to his face.

        “Please.”

        “What are you asking for?” says Victor, sounding worn.

        Sherlock doesn’t know. He nudges into Victor’s hand. Victor strokes his hair.

        “Please.” Hesitates, then wraps his arms around Victor’s waist, his hold unsure at first. Victor’s body, in spite of it all, is yielding, welcoming him, and Sherlock feels a surge of need, and hugs tight. He buries his face in Victor’s stomach. Sherlock can feel his breathing, glitched with a slight shudder. Then he feels Victor’s hand on his head, caressing him. There is a knot, tight and burning, in Sherlock’s throat, and he clings tight, as if Victor’s warmth and solidity so close to him can soothe it.

        It has been years.

        “Sherlock…” Victor’s voice is tinged with amazement and compassion. “Oh, fuck.” He wraps Sherlock’s head between his arms, so tight that there's a hum in Sherlock's ears. Victor repeats his name softly, as if it held some magic calming power.

        As he loosens his grip on him, he sighs “Ok.” Another breath. “Alright”

        He bends down to kiss him slowly and deeply. Sherlock feels a wave of unease in his stomach again, but he quashes it down, grounding himself with his hold on Victor’s waist. He starts to lay back down, dragging Victor after him.

        “Wait. Like this” says Victor, and lies next to him, on his side. “Tell me what you want” and that hint of sadness in his eyes is still lingering there, under his solicitude.

        Sherlock opens his mouth but he knows he’s got nothing. What to ask. How to ask. He is gaping like a fish out of the water.

        Victor pulls a little smile and kisses him. Little by little, to give Sherlock time to retreat, he entangles their legs. They’re both expecting a rush of panic, but it doesn’t come. Victor rocks his hips against Sherlock’s. Sherlock groans.

        “This alright?” asks Victor.

         Sherlock nods, but he wishes Victor just stopped asking and got on with it. He pushes back hard.

        “Ouch! Easy!” Victor laughs, still without his usual lightness.

        Sherlock feels frustrated. Too slow, too delicate.

        “Shouldn’t we take these off?” he says, tugging at his jeans.

        Victor hums a yes. Sherlock fumbles with his flies.

        “Help?” His hands are shaking, and he’s concerned Victor will notice if he struggles too long.

        Victor sits up to help Sherlock out of his jeans, leaving the tented pants in place. He lies down and lifts his hips to shove his own jeans off (no underwear), and turns to his side, now completely naked. Victor watches with an eyebrow raised with humour as Sherlock stares at his cock, flushed dark, half-hard. Sherlock reaches for it, wavers for a second. With a frown that could be either an effort to focus or to steel himself, he wets his palm with spit and takes Victor in hand. Clumsily at first, but quickly gaining confidence and coordination, he strokes Victor to full hardness and then tries a few experimental moves, things he enjoys, wondering what effect they’ll have on someone else’s body. Victor's eyes are closed and he is exhaling heavily, stroking Sherlock’s arm.

        Then Victor dips his hand under the waist of Sherlock's pants and grabs Sherlock's cock under the fabric, stroking and clutching. The angle is difficult, but somehow that makes it hotter. Sherlock’s mouth gapes open, taking a sharp breath, and his hand on Victor’s cock slows down and becomes erratic. The pants are restricting Victor’s movements, so Sherlock lets Victor go to push them down below the hips, releasing his erection. Victor’s wets his hand and his fingers wrap around Sherlock’s cock again, pumping expertly, twisting the fist, flicking the head now and then. Sherlock is panting and whimpering, unconsciously turning to rest onto his back to give Victor a better hold.

        Victor brings his face closer to Sherlock's and nuzzles his neck and his ear, his breath and his voice igniting something flammable inside there with a direct connection with Sherlock’s cock. "Sherlock" he murmurs. "Sherlock." Sherlock moans loud and comes suddenly, his body shaking, his mouth a big O. Victor strokes him through it, his mouth still lodged close to Sherlock's neck, his breath hot and moist and soothing. Sherlock's is shuddering and panting. It didn’t take very long at all.

        After a spell, Sherlock opens his eyes and focuses on Victor, his movements all of a sudden precise and controlled, almost reptilian. He pushes Victor belly up onto the bed to improve the angle. He lathers his hand with spit again and starts jerking him. He twists his fist around the shaft, flicks the head, changes speed and pressure, observing in Victor’s expression every stage of his progress to climax. They lock eyes for a second. Victor pulls him into a kiss, but Sherlock shakes him off and gets back to watching him with a clinical stare. He doesn’t notice Victor’s unhappy frown, he is so focused on the other matter in hand.

        Sherlock has found a rhythm now and sticks to it while Victor gasps, biting his lip, his arms over his head, clasping at the sheets. He buckles and rocks his hips, fucking Sherlock’s fist with a dancer's grace and vigor. He seems very far away somewhere. He looks so beautiful like this that Sherlock loses pace for a second, his eyes trying to take in all the changing details of Victor’s writhing body. With his eyes closed, Victor misses the awed expression on Sherlock’s face.

        Victor’s shoulders start to raise from the bed, curling upwards, and then he comes biting a groan, the spurts of come making Sherlock jump. He strokes him through the aftershocks. Then Victor collapses back, undone, his eyes closed, his breathing slowly going back to normal, his face terribly sad.

        Sherlock doesn’t understand. Sex is supposed to release hormones inducive of well-being.

        “Is there a problem?” Sherlock asks. “Did I do it wrong?”

        Victor's strained and dark expression suddenly softens. 

        “Come here” he mumbles, and pulls Sherlock to his chest. He pets his face and hair. Sherlock lets him.

        Victor sighs. Sherlock is melting in his arms, languorous as a cat, moulding himself to fit Victor’s body. He feels Victor’s kiss on his head. What he feels at being held like that, he doubts he will ever find words for.

        “This feels good,” he mutters.

        “Too good,” Victor replies. But he’s not sure Sherlock has heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks Cloisteredselfie, for beta-ing this chapter not once, but twice, and The-navel-treatment, who beta'd the first version. Them damned pandas finally mated. Goddammit, it was hard.
> 
> And thank you for reading. Please leave a comment, they make my heart zing!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is alright, for a while.
> 
> 'So now he gets it. Why people are thinking about sex all day, that is.'

        Sherlock doesn’t see Victor or hear from him for two weeks. It is obvious that he is avoiding him. He doesn’t understand. He wonders if this is what usually happens. He wonders if it was that bad. He’s still not sure if he liked it himself. He feels like there is a ball of lead in his stomach. He tries to shake the feeling off, but it haunts him.

         It is a relief when he finds Victor leaning by his door that evening, head down and looking grim, but there at least. Sherlock walks up to him and tries to read his expression. Victor meets his eye for but a second, and looks down again. Sherlock opens the door and lets him in. Victor slumps on the unoccupied bed while Sherlock puts away his things. The atmosphere is gloomy. Sherlock stands by the bed, his hands clasped behind his back.

         “I’m sorry” he says. A shot in the dark. 

        “What?” Victor looks puzzled.

        “Forgive me” insists Sherlock.

        “For what?”

        “Whatever it is that I did.”

        Victor puffs a heavy breath.

        “You did nothing wrong. It’s… not your fault.”

        “Then why are you upset with me?”

        “Sherlock...” Victor looks quite at a loss himself. “I’m not upset. I thought you might be.”

        “I’m not.” At least he doesn't think so.

        “Good. That’s... good.” Victor sighs. “I needed... I needed a bit of time. Or space. Or something.”

        “What for?”

        “Oh, Sherlock...” Deep, deep sigh of exhaustion. "To know where we stand. Make decisions. I don't know."

        "Have you?"

        "I don't know. I just... I needed to see you." This last bit he struggles with. That's not like Victor.

        There's a silence.

        “Do you want to talk?” Sherlock asks at last.

         Victor looks up again, confused.

         “You look tired” says Sherlock.

         “Do _you_ want to talk?” asks Victor.

         “Not particularly.”

         “Then lets not” says Victor, rubbing his eyes.

         Sherlock frowns. This is not going the way he hoped. He turns around and takes a couple of steps around the room. He knows he doesn't let it on, but he is terrified. There has to be something he can do.   

         He spots the CD player. There _is_ something that has a consistent rate of success when Victor's mood is concerned. Sherlock changes CDs, selects a track, adjusts the volume. When he turns to face Victor, the first notes twinkling in the air between them, he sees that Victor is already smiling a little smile. Sherlock walks towards him and grabs his hand, a bit stiffly perhaps, but hopefully it will do the trick.

         “You like this one” says Sherlock.

         Victor’s smile is now broader and brighter, and his eyes glow full of humour, melancholy in frank retreat. Sherlock feels _good_. Victor lets himself be pulled up and slowly wraps Sherlock in his arms, eyes locked on his. They start swaying and turning slowly to an undanceable violin sonata that Victor challenged one day and bested.

        Sherlock’s mouth is in line with Victor’s neck. He closes his eyes and buries his face in it. Victor’s head tilts to accommodate him and hold him there. Sherlock wonders what was he ever so afraid of. He lifts his face and seeks Victor’s mouth. Victor kisses him senseless, kneading his lips and stroking with his tongue, one hand cupping Sherlock’s head, the other sliding downwards until it finds his arse. Sherlock groans and lets his own hands travel Victor’s body.

         The track ends and there’s silence but for their breathing, the wet clicks of their kissing, the soft sounds from their throats.

         Sherlock slides his hands under Victor’s jacket to push it off, then his t-shirt. Victor goes along with it, pliant as a doll. Then Sherlock takes his own clothes off, while Victor observes with fevered eyes. Sherlock could never get enough of that stare. It shakes him to the core. It makes him feel powerful.

         When he is naked himself (oh, Victor's gaze all the way up and down his body!), he goes for the rest of Victor’s clothes. Victor’s chest is heaving and he swallows thickly when Sherlock kneels down to help him out of his jeans and shoes. When Sherlock looks up, he knows what he is going to see, but it still shocks him. And Victor’s glazed stare shocks him even more.

        Without breaking eye contact, Sherlock clutches the hard cock in front of his face and gives it a tug. Victor gasps, his mouth gapes. Sherlock licks the tip, flicks his tongue over the frenulum, once, twice. Victor’s eyes flutter shut as he shudders a breath. Sherlock wraps his lips around the head and sucks. Victor’s breath hitches. Sherlock does it again, harder, and Victor groans. That sound sends shivers down Sherlock’s spine. He licks his hand wet, wraps his fingers tight around the cock and takes it deeper in his mouth. It’s not half as weird as he had imagined.

        "Where did you learn all that?" says Victor, with a ragged breath. Sherlock ignores him and sucks harder, making him moan. 

        Victor’s hands rake through Sherlock’s hair as he sucks and rubs and licks him. Sherlock keeps looking up to try and see his face, but it’s a strain. This will not do. He gets up and pushes Victor onto the bed -Victor takes the chance to kiss his mouth and neck before he lies down. Victor positions himself, propped up on his elbows, one knee up, eyes locked on Sherlock’s. If he was prone to idle comparisons, at this moment Sherlock would be thinking of Roman marbles.

        Sherlock lies on his stomach between Victor’s thighs and takes him in his mouth again, his eyes fixed on Victor's face. He tries different things with his tongue, lips and teeth, with his hands, on the head, along the shaft, as deep into his throat as he can take it. The sounds Victor is making are wreaking havoc in his underbelly; the sight of his sharp collarbones and arched neck has him in awe. Victor writhes, his mouth spurts obscenities. “Ahhhh, fuck! Ah, yes, oh, fuck, ahhhh Sherlock!” Hearing his name called in a tone of worship, he ruts mindlessly against the mattress and over Victor’s leg. At some point he finds himself somehow removed from the experience, and does not recognise himself in the boy that’s doing these things to another human body. He who used to think physical contact repellent, taking a cock in his mouth, and relishing the feeling of power and freedom he is getting from it.

        “Sh-Sherlock I’m coming” gasps Victor. Pushes Sherlock away and finishes himself off.

        Sherlock watches him, enthralled. Victor is shuddering for a few seconds after that, his chest heaving, his eyes heavy-lidded, his expression remote and… -yes, Sherlock thinks, unable to stop looking- so beautiful. He observes keenly when Victor wipes his hands and body and takes a few deep breaths, his face now placid. And he closes his eyes when Victor kisses him and rolls him onto his back.

        They swap places. Sherlock realises he has a hell of a lot to learn, from the first moment, just watching the very way Victor settles between his thighs, feline and predatory, brushing his face down Sherlock’s chest, stroking down his thighs, ghosting his fingers at the back of his knees as he pushes them up, and how he delays the first touch, his eyes never leaving Sherlock’s, igniting him with anticipation. Victor fucks with his eyes no less than with his body. It turns Sherlock into mush. When that tongue first touches his cock, Sherlock feels a jolt, his eyes wide open, his mouth agape. Victor smiles as he gets to work. Sherlock finds himself completely at his mercy, unable to stop looking as his cock disappears deep inside Victor’s mouth.

        Sherlock finds himself snapping back into it several times -when Victor briefly lifts his head for any number of reasons- and realises his mind had gone completely blank and that he had stopped registering his own reactions. And that he is making embarrassing sounds that obviously please Victor very much, judging by his grin and playfully smug expression. Victor makes it last, bringing him twice to the brink and retreating, then starting again. And Victor looks so good like that, his lips swollen and flushed, dark pink, his eyes darkened, his hair disheveled by Sherlock’s hands, all debauched and glowing with it. When he finally lets him come, cock deep in Victor’s throat, thighs on Victor’s shoulders and two fingers up his hole, Sherlock is pretty sure everyone on that floor has heard them.

 

        So now he gets it. Why people are thinking about sex all day, that is.

 

        They lie side by side, squeezed together on the narrow bed, Victors arm around Sherlock's shoulders, smoking.

        “Why didn’t you…?” Sherlock struggles for words.

        Victor, who speaks Sherlock fluently by now, reads his thoughts and completes the sentence.

        “Come in your mouth?”

        “Yes.”

        “First time can be a bit much.”

        “I would have done it.”

         Victor looks amused. “You don’t have to you know.”

        “I want to.”

        “Next time then” he shrugs and messes his hair.

        Sherlock feels a flutter in his belly at that thought.

        "Are we alright?" mutters Sherlock, barely a breath.

        Victor kisses his forehead and there's a silence while Sherlock tries to find some courage.

 

        “Stay” he says, at last.

        Victor hugs him close and covers them both with the sheet.

 

* * *

        It’s early dawn. Sherlock wakes up suddenly, alone in the bed, and cold. He looks around with anxiety.

        Victor is sitting by the little window with a cup of tea and a cigarette. He turns to look at him, with a little smile. Sherlock draws a deep breath, and smiles back.

* * *

        Their routine resumes pretty much where they left it. That night they meet up at Victor’s to watch a movie, but the moment they find themselves together on the bed, they start snogging, and soon after they’re naked, and their attention couldn't be further removed from the action on the screen. The end credits find them wrapped around each other, fast asleep and sated.

       They still go to the movies and to that Chinese place, they still meet when they can, between classes, in the cafeteria off the Humanities faculty, and Sherlock still lurks from a distance when Victor is lazing about on the green with his stupid friends. A few times, Sherlock even joins them. Victor puts an arm around his shoulder and weaves his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, and he turns to look at him often with warmth and joy and pride. Sherlock stares back, and it is just possible that they get a bit lost in the moment, because Victor’s friends do retching noises and take the piss out of them. Victor flips them and snoggs Sherlock, smiling for two.

        Sherlock still has days when he retreats into himself and doesn’t talk or go out, manic over an experiment or apathetic while his mind computes or tries to work around a problem, or when he simply needs to be left alone. He usually lets Victor know by text. But these periods are shorter than they used to be, and less frequent, and combined with the fact that he is sleeping better and eating more, Sherlock thinks to himself that a therapist would say he is 'improving' -god, he hates that word. He wonders if he is happy, if this is what contentment feels like.

        At some point, they’re having sex every day. Victor says it’s one of Sherlock’s manias, but doesn’t seem put off. Sherlock tells Victor he wants him to teach him everything he knows. Victor finds that hilarious. But that afternoon he teaches him rimming and finger fucks him blind.

 

* * *

 

        Finals time approaches. They see a bit less of each other. They text instead. Victor says that even Sherlock's text are snarky, and learns a few obscene smileys to answer back. Sherlock hates smileys, so Victor loves them. It just works.

        Then Victor asks him whether he has plans for the summer, and whether he would like to spend some time over at Victor’s father’s house up in Norfolk.

        “My dad said he would like to meet my boyfriend” he says.

        “You told him you have a boyfriend?” Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

        “I told him about you, you oaf.”

        “Is that what we are then?”

        Victor chuckles and kisses him.

        “You’ll like it there. There’s miles of countryside and woods and nobody to piss us off. We’ll fuck on the roof under the stars. It will be wonderful.”

        Sherlock feels himself blushing. But he still does not think there's anything particularly wonderful about miles of countryside and woods.

        “I’ll have to talk to my parents. I think they expected me to spend the summer with my brother in London.”

        “Tell them you’ve got better plans” Victor’s eyes are glinting, and he’s giving him the naughty eyebrows.

        Sherlock smirks.

 

* * *

 

        They don’t speak again about it. Victor thinks it’s a done deal. Then Sherlock’s starts screening his phone calls, and one number in particular he just ignores for seven hundred tones until it stops ringing. Victor notices, of course, and one day he brings it up.

        “What is it Sherlock? Why aren’t you answering it?”

        “It’s just Mycroft. He’s being an arse with this Norfolk thing, so I'm ignoring him. Mummy doesn’t mind me going, so he can fuck off. Are you alright? You’ve gone pale.”

        “M-Mycroft?” Victor stutters.

        “My brother.”

        “Your brother is called Mycroft” he states, as if he’s trying to make sure he’s heard right.

        “Yes. Why do you keep repeating it? It’s a family name. Victor, are you alright?”

        “Did you tell him about me? My name?”

        “Yes, of course. What’s the problem?”

        Victor doesn’t say, but he has turned a pale shade of green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Selfie, my beautiful beta, and thank you for reading, and to everyone who leaves a comment, you are all stars. It's wonderful to feel I'm not talking to a void!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shots are fired
> 
> ' “Well, since you refuse to answer the phone,” says Mycroft “I realised I would have to come and talk to you in person.” Mycroft’s eyes only scan over Sherlock briefly and return to glaring at the blond sprawled across the bed. “And you must be Victor” he says at length, the shit-eating smile at full power.
> 
> “And you must be Mycroft” replies Victor, with a similar expression of polite, seething hostility on his face.
> 
> “You already knew each other” states Sherlock, his suspicions confirmed.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter makes several references to the stuff that happened in part 1 of this series. With imagination you can fill the holes, but if you think you're missing things, that's where you will find them.

        All things considered, it’s a weird few weeks before the end of term. Mycroft’s telephonic stalking escalates to manic levels until Sherlock simply stops re-charging the phone. He has predicted what Mycroft will do next, and he braces himself for it. A part of Sherlock can’t wait for Mycroft to come face to face with Victor.

        And that fateful, hot Saturday afternoon comes at last.

        “What are you doing here?” barks Sherlock when the door opens to reveal Mycroft in full tweedy glory, as always oblivious of the weather.

        Mycroft looks at Sherlock first, head to toe. He is in his lounging clothes, his hair matted and fizzy. He hasn’t showered yet today. Then he looks at Victor, who is sitting across the bed, washed out jeans and t-shirt, arms crossed, long legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles, barefooted, his hair shorter than the last time he saw him, his cheeks not so hollow, his skin golden, more muscular, bloody radiant.

        Victor and Mycroft stare at each other for an awkwardly long period of time.

        “Well, since you refuse to answer the phone,” says Mycroft “I realised I would have to come and talk to you in person.” Mycroft’s eyes only scan over Sherlock briefly and return to glaring at the blond sprawled across the bed. “And you must be Victor” he says at length, the shit-eating smile at full power.

        “And you must be Mycroft” replies Victor, with a similar expression of polite, seething hostility on his face.

        “You already knew each other” states Sherlock, his suspicions confirmed.

        “My father’s circle” says Victor, lying with ease, as if he doesn’t care whether Sherlock believes him or not. “I’ll leave you to it” stands up from the bed, grabs his shoes and brushes shoulders with Mycroft as he leaves, without looking at him.

* * *

       Victor opens the door at the second rap. He gives Mycroft a sideways glance before turning his back and making for a chest of drawers. He’s taking what appears to be gym gear out and stuffing it in a duffle bag.

        “I see you got your commission” says Victor. Mycroft arches an eyebrow. Victor explains, throwing a quick peek over his shoulder. “The suit. Bespoke.”

         Mycroft feels the tinge of a real smile tug at the corner of his lip, and suppresses it. For a second, it’s as if they had seen each other just a few days ago, and this visit had a different purpose altogether. Ah, the tricks the mind plays. A ghost stab in his chest. He plasters the other smile, the ‘political’ one, over his mouth.

        “So?” says Victor when Mycroft still won’t say anything.

        “What are you doing with my brother?” he says.

        Victor snorts, zips up the bag.

        “What do you want, the details?” he jeers.

        “I’ll ask you again.” Mycroft says.

        “Don’t bother” huffs Victor.

        Mycroft ignores this.

        “What are you doing with Sherlock? What is this about?”

        Victor turns to him. A sudden conscience is dawning on that lovely golden face.

        “Wait a minute” he is gobsmacked. “You think this is about you somehow?” Mycroft’s lets his silence and his minute grin answer for him. Victor scoffs “I can’t fucking…!”

        “Do you expect me to believe that this is a coincidence?” cuts Mycroft.

        “No, no, no, of course not!” sneers Victor, turning the irony up a few notches. “It’s all part of my evil masterplan! But just to be clear, am I spying for North Korea, or am I trying to get back at you? Or have I got other, even darker reasons? If you’d be so kind as to enlighten me!

        Mycroft doesn’t bite. He pulls on That Smile. Victor looks very much like he’d like to wipe it off Mycroft’s face with his nails.

        “Yes, Mycroft” he takes a deep breath. “For the fucking record. This is a coincidence. The most unfortunate coincidence I could ever conceive. How could I guess? _Sherlock_ and _Mycroft_? Who the fuck are your parents anyway? Is this their idea of a joke? Jesus!”

        Mycroft is squinting and his smirk is on. He still won’t take the bait. He keeps his tone congenial. It only contributes to fan the fires of Victor’s fury, but so be it.

        “Very well. An unfortunate coincidence. What are we to do about it?” he says.

        Victor spears him with his clear eyes.

        “What do you mean?”

        Mycroft smiles.

        “Surely you don’t intend to carry on with this?”

        Victor is shocked.

        “What the fuck are you saying, Mycroft?”

        “Well, you need to break it up, it’s evident.”

        “What? Why?”

        “You must see by now that this is a very, very bad idea. You two are completely unsuited for each other.”

        Victor turns pale. “Uns-unsuited...?”

        “With your past and Sherlock’s problems? Like throwing gasoline to the fire” states Mycroft, as if it is a self-evident fact of life he really should not need to spell out.

        “My past.” His eyes, seething with barely contained fury now. “My-my past. Mycroft...” an exasperated huff, and self-control is more or less regained. “I’m clean. I’ve been clean for more than a year now.”

        “My congratulations” says Mycroft with one of his most irksome inflexions, the one that seldom fails to make perfectly reasonable individuals want to punch him in the face. “But you are still a recovering drug-addict and Sherlock a drug user with a personality disorder. It simply won’t do. This is for both your sakes” he declares, in what he hopes it’s a tone of finality.

        Victor takes a deep breath.

        “Both our sakes.” he grunts.

        “Yes, Victor. You don’t know Sherlock as I do. You have no idea what it will do to him when this is over, if he allows himself in too deep.”

        Victor glares at him, defiant.

        “I’m not going anywhere, Mycroft.”

        Mycroft returns the stare. He does try not to make it too hostile, but it doesn’t come easily.

        “Victor, let’s be realistic here.” A pause to gather himself. “You’re a 21-year-old gay man who gets offers left right and centre. Even if you were not… the way you are, even without your previous... history, what are you telling me? What are you telling yourself? That you’ve found your soulmate? Your... your... partner for life? Does he fill you so much, is he such a perfect lover and companion, that you will never be tempted? Sherlock? Really?

        Victor looks shocked for an instant.

        “So that’s where he gets his self-esteem from” he hurls at him, his mouth cruel.

        Mycroft winces, very much against his will.

        “That’s not an answer” he hurls back.

        Victor has a wretched, wretched look on his face.

        “Our previous history. The way I fucking am. Yes. Of course.” Victor’s voice has cracked. For a second it looks like he is about to pounce on him and tear Mycroft’s eyes out, or at the very least, start screaming like a madman. But whatever was rising, he swallows it down. He turns around and takes two steps away, scrubbing his face. “You need to get the fuck out of here now, Mycroft. I’m not going to discuss this with _you_.” And Mycroft can practically taste the venom dripping from that pronoun.

        Mycroft smiles unpleasantly. It’s a compulsion. He doesn’t feel at all like smiling. He’s hit a soft spot and Victor is bleeding. He wipes out the smile and softens his tone.

        “Victor, you are both young. When the novelty wears out, you will be left with a boy who is barely capable of dealing with feelings of friendship, let alone romantic love, no self-esteem to speak of, no...”

        “Who is it that we are we talking about here, again?” interrupts Victor, his gaze fierce and intent.

        Mycroft’s own expression is now shadowed with a silver veil of menace, concealing a well of darker things Victor should really, really leave undisturbed, for everyone’s sake.

        “This is not a joke, Victor” he says, narrowing his eyes down to a threatening slit.

        “And I’m not laughing, Mycroft.” Victor repays him in kind.

        Mycroft glares with daggers in his eyes.

        “I’m here for Sherlock’s sake. What happened between us has no bearing on this matter” there is a minor hitch in his voice, where his self-control is cracking.

        “Keep telling yourself that, Mycroft.” Victor’s eyes are also awash with spite.

        “Goddammit, Victor!” he bites a roar. Trust this boy to test his patience like nobody else ever has. With one brotherly exception. He is panting as if he had just stopped running. He has been thrown off-balance. By Victor. He is fuming. “How dare you!” he shouts at last, incapable of stopping himself.

        “Dare what?”

        “Bringing up our... relationship to... to...” he’s struggling for words. He is actually struggling for words! He! Mycroft bloody Holmes!

        “Bringing it up? _I’m_ bringing it up?” Victor interrupts.

        “Bring it up as if... as if it gave you some sort of leverage! What kind of moral high-ground do you think you occupy here? Because the way I remember it you...”

        “Moral high-ground?” Victor roars over him. “I fucking loved you Mycroft!”

        Mycroft turns to Victor, agog.

        “Wh- you what?” Well, there we are now. He has been reduced to a blabbering monkey.

        “I was in love with you.” Victor repeats, his tone calmer now, and quite mournful.

        “Don’t talk nonsense” the shock makes him sound strained.

        Victor chuckles bitterly and doesn’t bother insisting or replying. And that, more than anything else, is what clenches it for Mycroft: Oh, dear god, he means it. He does, he means it.

        He can’t look at Victor in the face. He tries to pull himself together.

        “I didn’t... How could I even... Why did you never tell me?” he chokes out.

        “You were never ready to hear it. You would have said I was high.”

        “Oh for…” he takes a deep breath. “You should have told me.”

        “Mycroft, I tried. You didn’t want to hear it. Shit, you didn’t want to see it. It’s not as if I was being subtle.”

        Mycroft can’t look at him. He’s completely lost for words.

        “I never... I thought...”

        “That I had you on a schedule, yeah, I remember that.” He doesn’t even sound that bitter right now.

        “And you didn’t?” Mycroft’s fury is bubbling again. “Are you telling me I was the only one?” Mycroft is appalled that Victor should think he’d fall for this. He steels himself for a long counter-plea.

        Victor slumps on the bed instead, his laughter sour.

        “Oh, Mycroft. I really do have a type, don’t I? Please tell me there aren’t any more Holmes brothers.”

        Mycroft collapses on the desk chair, quite slouched himself, the stiff suit pulling everywhere. He buries his face in his hands. Victor lights up a cigarette and gives him time.

        When Mycroft looks up again, Victor returns his stare without fire and without rage.

        “I’m taking Sherlock home to Norfolk this summer” states Victor without hesitation. “I want him there with me, and he wants to come. You can be ok with it or you can give us hell. Either way, we are going.”

        Mycroft rubs his face, feeling tired, and exhales a heavy breath. Know when you are beaten, he tells himself. You won’t win this round.

        He stands up, his shoulders slumped, his expression unhinged, and makes for the door.

        “This is not the end of it” he warns from the doorway, himself surprised at how exhausted he sounds.

        “I’m sure it isn’t” says Victor calmly. “And, Mycroft?, I’m glad you got the job.”

        Mycroft looks down and shuts the door behind him. 

* * *

        The days that follow are awkward. Victor is quiet and never seems to have time for Sherlock. Revision, he says. Sherlock waits. No changes. He gets impatient. On Thursday, he decides he can wait no more.

        Victor opens the door for Sherlock with a towel around his waist, wet hair starting to curl and a tired look on his face. Lets him in and starts getting dressed. His shoulders are rigid and his demeanour strained.

       “Mycroft and you were lovers” announces Sherlock, sat on the bed, opting for a direct approach.

        Victor sighs heavily and slumps next to him. He rubs his face and looks at him, full of anxiety.

        “Are you alright?”

        “It’s alright” Sherlock says, his tone neutral. "I've been waiting for you to tell me."

        Victor exhales and puts the t-shirt on.

        "How long have you known?" he says at last, eyes lost in the void.

        "Pretty much since he opened the door. It doesn’t take a genius. Quite a coincidence, may I say."

        Victor chuckles, unhappy.

        "So Mycroft didn't tell you?"

        "Oh, he did, eventually, but by then I had already figured it out."

        "What exactly did he tell you?"

        "That you… That you had had an affair."

        "Were these his exact words?"

        "More or less."

        "How delicate." Huff. “Did he tell you what happened?”

        “He said you were on drugs.”

        “Which I was.”

        “Which you were.”

        “Anything else?”

        “That you were promiscuous.”

        A sour gesture on Victor’s mouth.

        “That is not true.”

        “Ok.”

        “Do you believe me?”

        “Yes.” Both Victor and Mycroft seem to think this is very important matter. Sherlock is not sure what his opinion on the subject of exclusivity is, if he has yet any. After a silence: "Why didn't you tell me?"

        Victor pulls on a pair of jeans, then lights two cigarettes and passes one to Sherlock.

        "…I didn't have a clue how you would react.” A puff of smoke, unfocused stare. “And I wasn't ready to talk about it."

        "How long were you going to leave it for then?"

        "I don't know." He sighs heavily. "I sort of hoped that you would find out sooner or later. I didn't plan it. I just… It's not easy for me. Talking about Mycroft."

        "Was it that bad?"

        "…I suppose it was.” A sigh. “Yes. It was bad."

        "Do you still… have feelings for him?"

        “It’s not that. It’s just... Thinking about that time drags all sorts of shit to the surface for me, so I try not to think about it at all."

        "… What shit?" Sherlock doesn’t swear much, and the word in his mouth doesn’t feel spontaneous. He wants to hear this. He needs to hear this. The silence is stretching. And stretching. He concedes at last. “Ok. You don't need to tell me."

        "No, wait." Victor will try. Victor always tries for Sherlock. He inhales in a way that screams ‘therapy’. Sherlock waits. "I wasn't a very happy person when I met Mycroft.” Victor takes a drag and keeps his eyes low. “I was very... lonely. And angry. At my dad, at my mom. At myself. Well, you know what I'm talking about, don't you? I was doing lots of stupid things. E, coke, fucking around. And then I met Mycroft. It didn't turn out as I expected. He was very different from anybody I knew. I suppose it's a family thing” he chuckles, the sound sour. “He… well, he got under my skin. But he never believed that, not once. He doesn't like himself all that much, so how could anybody else like him? I think… I think I did break through a couple of times, but he pushed me off so far I… He made me feel like shit. Like I wasn't worth the effort. Instead of running in the opposite direction as fast as I could, I kept it going. I don't know what I was trying to get from it. I suppose... I don't know. I kept hoping I would reach him, and then he’d open to me and love me back. I was stupid.” His face crumples with self-loathing. “I was a fucking idiot. I really...” A deep, shuddering sigh. “I really wanted him to love me back.” He ruffles his hair, frustrated.” Anyway, it went from bad to worse until it fell apart on its own. …By then I was so fucked up that even my dad noticed. It took a while, but we talked it through. I went into rehab. The first time didn't go so well. The second… well, here I am."

        It will take Sherlock a long time to process all of this, and a good chunk of it he can’t even bear thinking about, so that will add some difficulty to the matter. Sherlock does not know the Mycroft Victor’s talking about. Or the Victor, for that matter. It’s all bizarre and surreal and it might have happened in the land of myth for all the sense it makes to Sherlock at the moment. Victor is assessing his reaction with some concern.

        "I'm fine" says Sherlock, when he notices.

        Victor draws a breath, sadness in his eyes.

        “Are you sure?

        Sherlock shrugs.

        "A bit…you know."

        “What?”

        Sherlock shrugs again. Victor gets it. He laughs. And now Victor is smiling with mischief.

        "Naked Mycroft." he says, the devil in his stare.

        "Shut up” says Sherlock in a cautioning tone.

        "Naked Mycroft having sex."

        “Victor, if you ever want to be able to get near me again, I’m warning you…”

        “Naked Myc-OOMPH!”

        Sherlock’s whacked him in the face with a pillow.

        "Shut up!" he shouts, while Victor tries to get him off, laughing. Sherlock prides himself in his wrestling prowess, but Victor is a cheat, using tickling and indecent fumbling to turn the contest to his advantage.

        “You’re not as good as you think at changing subjects” says Sherlock afterwards, flustered and sweaty, pinned under Victor’s body. “I still remember what we were talking about.”

        Victor looks a lot more cheerful now, flushed pink and his brow pearled with sweat, but the shadow is still there. Sherlock strokes his face and that makes Victor close his eyes, and when he opens them again, he has an expression of devotion Sherlock simply does not understand.

        “I love you, Sherlock” Victor says.

        Sherlock frowns, but then he pulls a little smile.

        “And you know what,” whispers Victor, leaning close for a kiss, “I think you love me too.”

         Sherlock is still smiling when Victor starts peeling their clothes, very very slowly.

* * *

        Afterwards they get a takeaway and watch a movie. “Sod revising. I need Billy Wilder” says Victor. And it does seem to do him good.

        Sherlock stays for the night, not that he expects to get any sleep. He watches Victor sleeping peacefully and he feels a prickle of anxiety at the thought that he hasn’t got a clue why in the world Victor loves him. That he could stop doing it at any minute and lose him. Or that it has nothing to do with him and it's all Victor’s doing. He is a romantic after all, and Sherlock a lost cause -and how much that thought hurts all of a sudden, like a stab to his side; he thought he was used to it by now.

       Oh, he thought he had become used to a lot of things about himself, before he met Victor. But ever since this thing started, Sherlock feels raw, confused and exhausted. When he is away from Victor he does wonder sometimes why he carries on with it. It takes up so much time and space in his mind, in his life, and for what? What is the point of it all? What is to be gained from chatting, watching movies and having orgasms?

        But then Victor comes, and smiles, and teases him, and kisses him, and Sherlock doesn’t think about why or what for. And it’s good. But for how long. Sherlock remembers Mycroft’s parting words that Saturday past, “Don’t be an idiot. Remember Redbeard”.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they go to Norfolk.
> 
> 'He thinks about Mycroft. "You don't know Victor as I do", he told him. He feels a pang of pain inside. He can imagine Victor and Mycroft talking normally, fucking normally, feeling normally, the way he knows he is not capable of.'

        It’s a couple of hours by train to Norwich, then a half hour ride to Donnithorpe. Victor sleeps during the trip, his head on Sherlock’s shoulder. It gets rather constricting soon enough but Sherlock makes himself stay as still as possible, even when Victor’s unruly curls tickle his nose.

        They didn’t sleep much last night. Sherlock is alert and not at all tired. He watches the landscape transition gradually from the London suburbs to the broad countryside, all parcelled up and dotted with sheep and cows. England, so human-scaled, tame and reliable.

        A big, fancy car is waiting for them at the station. Victor shakes hands with and half-hugs the driver -an attractive thirty-something whose easy familiarity with Victor Sherlock assesses and tags with a question mark-, and introduces them (“Sherlock, this is Peter.”) Peter grabs their bags and chats with Victor about someone they both know. Victor laughs and banters with his posh sunglasses on and for a moment he looks like someone Sherlock could never possibly be friends with. How conspicuous Sherlock feels in his dark clothes, with his pale skin and black hair, and his stiff demeanor, almost a negative copy of golden, relaxed, sunshiny Victor, and completely out of place. Oh, but Sherlock knows about armours, and he has seen Victor without his. He grabs his hand for a second, and the smile Victor gives to him in response is very different than the one he was wearing for Peter.

        They leave the city and eventually the motorway to take to the narrow country lanes, branches criss-crossing above their heads, vivid green, hawthorn and bramble hedges lush by the roadside, cowslip swaying amidst the unkempt grass on the kerbside, and frayed flocks of sheep’s wool caught on the barb wires, flashing among the thick trunks of centennial oaks, chestnuts and ash trees. Sherlock tells himself once again that he’s made a mistake when he committed himself to a month of this. He grew up in the country, and there’s a reason he had planned to spend his holidays in London with Mycroft, in spite of, well, Mycroft.

        Victor at his side is looking out the window and not talking much, his leg bouncing with impatience. He seems to be lost in thought. At some point he turns to face him, smiles, pulls him into a prolonged kiss that makes Sherlock feel a bit self-conscious (even though he notices through the rearview mirror that Peter is making a point of not spying on them.) The heat of the kiss brings to mind the conversation they had last night, about what Victor was going to do to him, and let Sherlock do, when they got to Norfolk. Sherlock feels a knot in his stomach at the thought, and can’t really work out whether it is a good knot or a not so good knot.

        Victor returns to looking out the window and Sherlock does too, feeling flustered. One thing is true: no matter how much Sherlock says sex is boring, for some reason that is a thought that never occurs when he is actually at it, or when Victor gives him _that_ look.

        The car takes a narrow lane almost completely swallowed up by trees and rhododendrons in bloom; it then emerges to a broad way that winds through a wildflower field. The manor house rests atop a small hill, sulphur yellow stone, graceful in its symmetry, majestic and enormous.

        They get out of the car, shake hands with Peter, who is taking the car away as they speak, and start the parsimonious climb up the well-worn stone steps of the grand double staircase, while Victor chats.

        “You’ll hear my father moan all the time about how much it costs to run, but don’t let that fool you for a second. He loves Donnithorpe. He’s proud of it. I think a lot of people consider this a vanity project, you know, Mr. New Money trying to buy himself some pedigree, but it’s bollocks. He just fell in love with the place and could not bear to see it go to ruin. They bought it when my mom was still alive, and he threw himself to it after she died, for her. My father is a sentimental fool.” And Victor looks very, very fond of him for it.

        “Is he here now?” asks Sherlock.

        “Not at the moment. He said he’d be coming this weekend though, he is intensely curious about you. But don’t worry, he won’t be here a lot. He works all the time, and I think he has a girlfriend. I mean, he’s had several, but I think this one he’s putting a bit more effort in.” Which obviously doesn’t bother Victor much.

        The interior is on a par with the exterior, but it’s far less stuffy and a lot more welcoming than Sherlock had predicted. There is museum-quality art hanging from the walls and set on pedestals; tapestries, paintings, busts, reliefs, sculptures. It’s rich and mind-bogglingly sumptuous, but it also looks treasured, micro-managed.

        “This part is pretty much public. Tourists come here to see the house and the art. The collection was scattered and ran down, and my father is restoring it and putting it back together under one roof. Again, you’ll hear him cursing to the heavens about it, but catch him off guard and you’ll see him stopping to admire a painting they just restored or an 18th century copy of a Roman marble he’s just found. Seriously, I once saw him join a tour with a group of Germans. He always e-mails me whenever he buys a piece or has something restored, he’s that invested. Anyway. Most of the west wing is private. It’s where we stay when we come here.” Victor smirks and affects a deeper voice, “If you’d like to follow me, sir,” and gestures with a flourish to the staircase on the right. 

        They make their way to a dark, carved, well-trodden wooden staircase that leads to a marble balustrade and a dark, heavy, ancient door with a lock. Victor gets his keys and lets Sherlock into a long corridor with lots of windows to the right, facing the green at the back of the house, and a few doors to the left.

        “My room is at the end of the corridor. You’ll love it.”

        Sherlock loves it, indeed. It occupies the whole floor space of a tower, windows in every aspect, a balcony circling it, and a mezzanine with an access to the outside, which is actually the roof of the house. And what a strange, fantastical place that roof is, with a landscape of round cupolas, lead planks sprinkled with sulphur-yellow lichens, and hatches and chimneys and dormer windows, and around it a sea of acres and acres of green and woodland as far as the eye can see. Sherlock is gaping and gazing all around, his imagination flying, feeling like a little boy of ten who dreamed of being a pirate. The sky is fierce blue on the east but clothed with magnificent grey cumulus to the west, and the high noon light is tinged with a hint of purple and rain. Sherlock turns to see Victor smiling, and kisses him without method, with a child’s passion.

        Victor promises they’ll sleep out here tonight, if it’s not raining. It was the only way to get Sherlock back inside.

        They settle in the room.

        “Has this always been your room?” says Sherlock, scanning the space for any traces of Victor's personality, which seem completely absent.

        “No, I would have been terrified. It’s so big. And I seem to remember that my mom hated the stairs to the mezzanine and the balcony. I think she thought I’d fall and break my neck, or escape to the roof at night and jump off or something.” Victor is taking out all his gadgets and plucking them to chargers all around the room. “And it has views to the back green…” he says, taking a look out. “The foxes come out of the woods at night, and you can see them running around and fighting. They scared the hell out of me.”

        He is hanging his jacket up and unbuttoning the two top buttons of his shirt. The weather is hot and moist and it feels as if it’s about to rain. Sherlock’s eyes dart to the dip at the base of his neck. He likes that bit.

        “No, I had a smaller bedroom down the hall, with no views to the back, and with a door to my nanny’s room – yes, of course I had a nanny, don’t look at me like that, I’m practically a fucking orphan” he huffs, giving him a mock angry stare. “And I had my little light on and I always left the door ajar, before you ask.”

        Sherlock rolls his eyes, not impressed, and Victor pulls a mocking face; he’s used to Sherlock.

        “I never really got used to this place.” He reminisces, looking out the window, again, a glimmer of sweat on his brow. “We only came some weekends and for the holidays, and there were massive restoration works for, I don’t know, the first five years or so. I moved into this room after I got out of the clinic, after rehab. I spent a lot of time here before college, after I sold the flat in London. It’s more like home now than it ever has been. As much as it can be anyway.”

        Sherlock looks around. Although the room is densely furnished with antiques and venerable furniture, and it’s certainly warm and beautiful, there are not many indications that a real person has ever lived here. You would think it’s a movie set, so very “period-accurate”, except for the modern bedding, neutral coloured, the dog-eared, back-battered paperbacks on the bookshelf, and the few electronic trinkets by the bed and inside the drawers. It all gets Sherlock’s inquisitive instincts tingling. He starts nosing everywhere, opening doors and drawers and peering under furniture and behind curtains and doors. Victor leaves him to it with a mild smile as he puts their stuff in the wardrobe, a huge piece of carved oak empty but for a few clothes hangers, a bathrobe and a heavy winter coat, muddy at the hem.

        “Like it?” asks Victor, a tad shy.

         Sherlock peers around, his hands clasped behind his back.

        “Who else is here?” he asks in turn.

        “What do you m... Oh. There’s the security people day and night, but they’re mainly over the east wing, with the collection. There there’s the gardeners, the cleaners – they come and go, I don’t know their names-; the head gardener, Mr. Sears, will probably drop by when my father comes; then there’s the caretaker, Ms. Northam, who lives here, in the gamekeeper’s cottage, with her family. Who else... There’s some British Heritage tour guides on the weekends, but I don’t know if they’ll be the same as last year.” Victor rubs the stubble on his chin, pondering. “Oh there’s no cook. Mrs. Upham used to cook for us but she’s seventy now and I told my dad not to get anyone else just for me. There’s a normal sized kitchen in this wing we can use, and Ms. Northam will have had somebody stock it for us. I know you’re hopeless, but I’ll manage.” He smiles at Sherlock’s glare. “There’ll be tourists here on the weekends, but we’ll go to the woods or to the seaside or something if we need some air. We keep a car here, and a bike, so we can go anywhere we want. We’ll drop by and say hello to Ms. Northam, but apart from that, for most of the time, we’re on our own.”

        Sherlock nods.

        “Your eyes are shining” he says.

        “Are they?” says Victor, smiling.

        They fall silent for a few seconds.

        “Will you be alright here with me?” Victor asks.

        Sherlock shrugs.

         “Come here” Victor pulls him into a hug and kisses him long and deep. He slides his hands under Sherlock’s t-shirt, making him shiver.         “Remember what we said yesterday?” Victor mutters under his breath, nibbling at Sherlock’s earlobe. Sherlock nods. But he’s tense, and he knows Victor will feel it. He does, and caressing him he pulls away from him, looking ever so slightly disappointed, yet resigned. Which is how he often looks around Sherlock, to be honest. “I’ll show you the rest of the house. There are actual secret passages in this place.” He grabs him by the hand and they’re off.

* * *

       

        Donnithorpe is huge, and there are so many rooms, halls, hallways, corridors, alcoves, utility rooms, broom cupboards, nooks and crannies, that Sherlock finds himself actually consulting the map on a leaflet he’s pinched from the visitor’s entrance, annotating it and committing it to memory.

        They stop to have some lunch in the “everyday” kitchen Victor mentioned earlier, nothing to do with the massive, Victorian-restored monster where banquets and big occasions are prepared by battalions of professional caterers. They have indeed bumped into Ms. Northam, who has kissed Victor shyly on the cheek and then shaken hands mildly with Sherlock. One could say she’s the real mistress of that place, the only one who lives here and who runs the day-to-day business of this titanic endeavour, but her demeanor around the owner’s son is rather ‘unmistresslike’. Perhaps it’s a pose. Victor doesn’t seem to have a thought to spare on the subject.

        “I don’t know her much, even though she’s been around for ages” says Victor after a sip of water, half-eaten sandwich in his hand. “She keeps to herself. She’s an art historian, so it’s not like she’s just minding the plumbing, she runs the collection as well. But she’s not very friendly. I almost had a thing with her daughter once. Maybe she had an issue with that.”

        “Almost?”

        “Yeah, we went out a couple of times one summer.”

        “Did you break her heart?”

         Victor looks at him with an odd expression. Chews and swallows his bite of food.

         “That sounded like Mycroft” he says then.

        Sherlock looks blank. He can’t decipher Victor’s tone.

        “No, she dumped me” continues Victor. “There was no spark in there, for obvious reasons. No hearts broken, but I don’t know what her mother thought about the whole thing.” He takes a sip.

         Sherlock eats up. He skipped breakfast this morning. He was probably nervous, but he wouldn’t admit to it for the world.

        “There’s a lake at the back of the house, with little rowing boats and a grotto. It’s fucking awesome. Do you want to go? ...What’s so funny?”

        “You. Sounds as if you’re as new to this place as I am. You’re so excited” says Sherlock.

        That makes Victor give him his warmest smile.

        “I just want to show you everything. I’m in love. I don’t want to play it cool.”

        Sherlock frowns and feels an overpowering need to clear his throat for no physical reason whatsoever. Victor squeezes his hand and stuffs the rest of the sandwich in his mouth, unfazed.

 * * *

         Insects buzzing, birds chirping, reeds waving in the breeze, frogs croaking, crickets cricketing, and Sherlock breathing hard and moaning as Victor sucks him on a boat in the middle of the lake. He feels very calm, very focused, conscious of Victor’s mouth, of the minute shifts of the boat on the water, of every bit of wood digging into his back and arse. Victor looks up every now and then to make sure he’s there, as he holds his hips down and plays with his tongue around the landscape of the head of Sherlock’s cock. Oh, Sherlock is there. He is there. He clings to the side of the boat for dear life, and to Victor’s curls for a little death. He comes biting his lip and sucking in sharp breaths, the aftershocks rocking the boat, the plip-plop of the calm waters his movements have disturbed, amplified and mollified at the same time by the wood of the hull.

        He opens his eyes to Victor’s face close to him, and when he kisses him, Sherlock tastes himself. Above them, the sky patched up with cotton-bud clouds, the afternoon light trickling through, peering and hiding. The everchanging British skies amusing themselves as usual. Sherlock starts to move to reciprocate. Victor stops him.

        “Just… lie here with me a while. Alright?” he says.

        Sherlock lies down next to him, and Victor holds his hand. The boat is still again, there is not one whisper of a breeze, and a swarm of little flies hovers above the water. Victor’s breathing is calm, his eyes open to the changing sky. Sherlock tries to settle down, but the sky is dull. And the afternoon is dull. And this is dull. HIs toes are twitching, and his eyes are darting around, looking for things to see, scan and assess. He should be feeling satisfied and content. Instead, his mind is restless and seething, craving coke to escape this tar pit of boredom and mental stagnation. Not that coke does that much for him anymore.

        His leg can't keep still, his fingers are tapping the side of the boat. He thinks about Mycroft. "You don't know Victor as I do", he told him. He feels a pang of pain inside. He can imagine Victor and Mycroft talking normally, fucking normally, _feeling_ normally, the way he knows he is not capable of. He thought that he would learn, but he doesn't feel any different. He is still the same obnoxious, unfeeling, irritating prick he was before, with nothing worthwhile to give. Yes, he is clever -although not as much as Mycroft-, and he knows a few party tricks, but he's also a self-loathing, self-centred, emotionally stunted, ridiculous brat, and Victor could do better. Any day now the notion will finally sink in that thick brain of his, and he will leave. No matter how much he protests, no matter how much he swears and promises. And he shouldn't stay with Sherlock, if he knows what's good for him. He knows he doesn't make Victor happy. How could he? Victor is joy and sex and life. Sherlock... Oh, if they could just cut to the chase, if they could just get on with the hurting, because the wait is killing him.

        Victor’s arms around him when he is feeling this way are not comforting at all. Sherlock shakes him off gruffly, and sits up.

        “Can we go back now?” he says looking to the front, his posture stiff.

         Victor clears his throat, which he sometimes does when he is upset.

        “Certainly” he says, as he sits up, picks up the rows and starts making for the shore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I am very sorry.
> 
> Donnithorpe is, as far as I know (ACD canon experts enlighten me) a fictional village in Norfolk. I've decided to give that name to the house. I've never been to Norfolk, which will be obvious I suppose to anybody from around there, so I'm keeping it fuzzy, basing my description of the area to the English countryside I'm familiar with.  
> If there is anybody from Norfolk who would like to help out in correcting any mistakes I might have made, I'd be very grateful.
> 
> Thanks to Cloisteredself for her beta-ing, and to you for reading and sticking with this story.
> 
> Can't wait to post next chapter, but I will (evil laughter)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they spend time at their leisure, and meet Mr. Trevor and... Oh, I like this one.
> 
> '“So you are Mycroft Holmes’ younger brother” he says, in a perfectly neutral tone with just a hint of disbelief. A seasoned diplomat, as cool and unruffable as his son.'

_Bored yet? MH_

 

        The week ambles by at a leisurely pace, like an old fat squire strolling down a country lane. Sherlock has brought the violin, a ton of books and some lab material, and tries to pass the dead hours examining pollen, seeds and types of earth, but the very quietness and emptiness of the place does his head in. He is tempted again and again by the coke he’s smuggled in inside a pair of socks. So far, Victor has always managed to get back just in time, usually with ice cream and fags and feeling frisky. It's been enough so far.

 

        On Monday they take the bikes to the nearest village for cigarettes, fresh milk and sweets.

        Sherlock waits by the bikes while Victor unlocks the chains. Victor gives him a look and starts laughing.

        “What?” Sherlock is puzzled.

        “You. With the fags and the lolly.”

        “I don’t get it.”

        Victor pushes him against the wall of the alley where they parked the bikes.

        “It’s a bit ridiculous, and hot as fuck” he mutters into his ear, and kisses him long and sweet and sticky, his hands under Sherlock's t-shirt, his thigh against Sherlock's crotch.

* 

        On Tuesday they drive to the coast to brave the Channel waters, even though it’s a grey day. Sherlock dips his toes and does not like it. He combs the beach for bits of junk but soon gets bored and goes to sit down on the towels, laid above the tide mark.

        Victor absolutely loves it. He throws himself into the cold waves and yells and whoops and squeals and splashes and swears a lot. He runs out shivering soon after, flushed pink and covered in goosebumps, and so very tall from where Sherlock is sitting, his curls flattened out against his face. When he ruffles his hair he sprays Sherlock, who looks away, annoyed. Victor wraps himself in a towel and slumps next to Sherlock, who is smoking and tut-tutting.

        “What?” says Victor, with a huge white grin, rubbing his arms vigorously against the cold.

        “That was a very stupid thing to do.”

        “No, that was insanely fun, you git” and steals the fag from Sherlock and kisses him, then takes a drag and winks.

        “I don’t see what is fun about…”

        Victor stubbles the fag and pounces on him, shutting him down with another kiss.

        “Get off, you’re freezing” groans Sherlock, but his arms are already around Victor’s towel-clad body, and one leg has also started to wrap over his calf.

        “Give me a fucking minute” chuckles Victor, rubbing himself against him.

        He’s lying pressed flush on top of Sherlock, their faces very close, their eyes locked. There are shiny grains of sand in Victor’s hair and on his skin. Sherlock rubs a nail against his shoulder where a few particles are encrusted. Then he rears his head and licks them, making Victor hum appreciatively.

        “Salty” says Sherlock.

        “All over” murmurs Victor, with a mischievous smirk.

        Sherlock kisses him and Victor melts in his arms. He never gets used to Sherlock’s spontaneous gestures of affection.

        Then a gust of breeze that smells like rotten seaweed blows sand over them.

        “Ugh” Sherlock coughs and gets Victor off him, scrubbing his mouth and spitting sand.

        Victor lays on his side and pulls a little, sad smile over his disappointment. Throws a look at the beach birds, waltzing to and fro with the waves in little, quick, silly steps.

        “Can we go now?” Sherlock groans.

* 

        On Wednesday they go to town for ice cream and sit on a terrace, and Victor has him deduce every person that walks by. He looks at Sherlock with wide, bright eyes and a little smile. Sherlock loves that face. He kisses him, and when a couple of young idiots throw them a glare, he flips them and kisses Victor again. And Victor looks radiantly into his eyes, and Sherlock thinks that he looks happy.

* 

        On Thursday, Victor takes him on a long ride on the motorbike. Now, here is something Sherlock can’t get enough of. He throws his head back and lifts the screen of the helmet to get the wind on his face. The vibration of the motor between his thighs is an interesting sensation, and at some point he finds himself groping the inside of Victor’s thighs and crotch distractedly while on the move. It ends with a sudden stop on a lay by, and both of them on their knees among the bushes. Sherlock grumbles about gravel and creepy-crawlies up his pants, and Victor says amid ragged breaths, hand firmly clawed in Sherlock's hair and the other inside his pants, and his mouth on Sherlock's neck, that he should have thought about that earlier.Yes, Sherlock loves that bike.

 

        That night they sleep on the roof. They lay on a pile of blankets, smoke and look at the sky, and Sherlock wows Victor naming every constellation and every star.

        “It’s really nothing” he says. “It’s just memory.”

        “It’s amazing.”

        “Meretricious. I should delete it. It’s useless."

       “No it isn’t.”

        “It has no practical application in real life.”

        “Doesn’t it?” says Victor with a loved-up beam, and kisses him deep and long, wrapping himself around Sherlock.

        “Circus tricks turn you on?” mutters Sherlock against Victor’s mouth.

        “Your brain turns me on” his murmur low and velvety as he nuzzles his neck and weaves his fingers in Sherlock’s hair.

        Sherlock frowns.

        “Is that why you loved Mycroft? For his brain?”

        Victor gets rigid under Sherlock’s hands and pulls away from him.

        “Can we not talk about Mycroft?”

        Sherlock stays quiet.

        They look at the sky some more.

        Sherlock’s legs are skipping again. In his brain, the words he has managed to swallow rather than utter have turned into a meaningless litany: “he’s the smart one he’s the smart one he’s the smart one he’s the smart one...”

*

        On Friday afternoon, they drive to the station to pick up Victor’s father. Sherlock’s mouth is dry all the way there, and his leg refuses to stay still. When they pull at the kerb, before they get out of the car, Victor smiles at him and kisses him, and stares into his eyes, as if to infuse him with reassurance. Which is very sweet, really, even when his hands are trembling more than Sherlock’s.

        Introductions are stiff, courteous but strained. Charles Trevor gives his son a forced embrace and shakes hands with Sherlock. He has a firm grip. He is very much like a softer, venerable version of Victor himself, shorter and pudgier but patrician nonetheless, his greying curls a bit longer than many would deem respectable for his age and social position. Very much like his son, indeed.

        “So you are Mycroft Holmes’ younger brother” he says, in a perfectly neutral tone with just a hint of disbelief. A seasoned diplomat, as cool and unruffable as  his son.

        Driving back, Victor and his father exchange some news about the house and the collection, about college and forecast for exam results. Sherlock sits at the back and looks out the window. He listens intently to every word and every silence, while trying to appear a bit distracted. He gets the impression of two men who know very little of each other and have even less in common, but share a strong, mutual, abiding love for each other. Sherlock envies that. He envies it very much.

*

 

        Just as Victor said, Charles Trevor walks into his house as a tourist, taking in the grandeur of the place and looking around almost as he had never seen it before. Sherlock finds it endearing. Ms. Northam rushes from a side door to greet him. She gets a double-handed shake, but there is little intimacy there.

        “Is this going in the green room, dad?” asks Victor, carrying his father’s overnight bag in the general direction of the stairs.

         Mr. Trevor harrumphs.

         “No, the studio room.”

         That’s on the floor below Victor’s tower. Sherlock smiles to himself. Whatever happens in his son’s room, Mr. Trevor would obviously rather not hear it. Sherlock throws Victor a wink. Victor blushes -that’s a first. He’s never made Victor blush before. Sherlock feels a pang of fondness and pride.

 *

 

        Victor had said that his father was curious about Sherlock. In his own self-possessed, collected way, he is indeed. Later that evening, around the kitchen table, eating the meal that Victor has cooked, Charles Trevor makes his considered, rather unintrusive questions. Sherlock barely opens his mouth. Victor barely shuts it.

        “My son tells me you are a chemistry student, but that you are mainly interested in criminology.”

         Sherlock nods.

        “Sherlock is amazing” says Victor from the kitchen, while he tidies up the dishes, over the noise of the running tab. “He has so far managed to classify 98 types of ash! He can identify 70 different perfumes by smell alone. And I mean the brand and the name, with a blindfold. Was it 70 or can you do more already? His brain is like… he’s a genius dad, I mean it!”

        Sherlock notices the minute, warm smile on Charles Trevor’s face. When the old man briefly meets his eyes, Sherlock smiles as well. After that the conversation is still stilted, but the air in the room is not.

        The old man bids them goodnight at the bottom of the stairs leading up to their floor. He hugs Victor, timidly at first, then with unwavering strength, and kisses his face. He doesn’t look his son in the eye though, probably overwhelmed by his own surge of emotion. As for Sherlock, he shakes his hand first, and then pulls him into a half-hug as well, and pats him in the back once, making Sherlock silently wince. Sherlock sees Victor looking at them, and sees his eyes, tinged with red.

*

        Sherlock comes out of the bathroom to find the bedroom’s lights out and Victor down to his boxers, smoking by the open window, perched on the sill, looking thoughtful. Sherlock walks up to him, pyjama bottoms only, and hesitantly lifts a hand to scratch Victor’s curls.

        Victor throws his head back, nudging into his hand.

        “I’m alright.”

        “Ok” says Sherlock. He looks at the bed and bites his lip in thought. Sensing Victor’s sideways gaze on him, he slides out of his pyjamas and gets under the sheets. He looks at Victor, his face shrouded in darkness, only the glimmer of the cigarette and its reflection in his eyes. The smoke snakes up lazily. There is no breeze.

        Victor butts out the cigarette and walks over to him, slowing down to take his pants off, and slides under the covers next to him. They lie down in silence for a bit.

        Sherlock turns on his side and leans over Victor to kiss him. How compliant Victor is, parting his mouth, closing his eyes, just letting Sherlock’s lips stroke and knead and press, and meeting Sherlock’s tongue with his.

        Now Sherlock’s open mouth travels down to Victor’s neck, tracing its contours, his hand stills around Victor’s head, his fingers weaving in his curls, and Victor opens his eyes to see Sherlock gazing his body with hunger. He goes for Victor’s nipples, just the way Victor showed him, with the tongue, flicking and circling, and Victor claws at Sherlock’s hair, his breathing heavy.

        He makes Victor roll over onto his stomach. He feels Victor’s chest heave and Sherlock thinks it’s anticipation. He puts his mouth on the depression at the back of Victor’s neck and starts tracing the spine downwards with his tongue, pressing open mouthed kisses all the way down to the base, where Victor’s arse is lifting to welcome him. He kneads the buttocks with his hand and bites the plump flesh. Victor draws in a sharp breath and a chuckle, and Sherlock hears him gasp his name in feigned shock. His fingertips play on the pearls of Victor’s spine, while his tongue finds the cleft between Victor’s buttocks and traces it to a place Sherlock would have never thought he’d ever want anything to do with.

         “Sh-Sherlock” breathes Victor, as Sherlock parts his buttocks and starts licking and pushing his tongue against his hole. Victor moans and his hand reaches for his own cock. He rolls his hips and fists himself slowly and his breathing is ragged, and Sherlock is going mad hearing it, hearing what he is doing to him, the squirming and the groaning. Sherlock’s harder than he has ever been.

         “I want to fuck you” Sherlock says.

         “Yes” whispers Victor.

         “What do I do?”

          A low chuckle muffled by the pillow. Victor turns on his side and reaches inside the drawer of the bedside table, where Sherlock knows there’s lube and condoms. Victor grabs the tube.

         “You need to stretch me. Do you want me to do it?”

         “Show me how”

        Victor gets some lube on his fingers and finds the spot. With a soft sigh, Victor slides a finger in and out easily. Sherlock can barely fucking breathe watching, and without even thinking begins slowly stroking himself. Two fingers. In out, in out. Stretching. Sherlock slaps Victor’s hand away, gets lube on his own fingers and pushes in, a bit too eagerly perhaps. Victor moans a ragged, breathy sound that Sherlock feels like a flood of heat at the base of his cock, in his underbelly. One finger goes in easy, two fingers –Sherlock’s long, thin fingers-, now three. Victor is shaking and shuddering and rutting the mattress and clawing at the sheets.

        “Sherlock. God.” He gasps. “Fuck me, I’m ready”.

        Sherlock feels a bit overwhelmed all of a sudden. Shaking, he gets a condom and struggles with the wrap. Victor has half-turned to him, sees him a bit shaky. He gets up, takes the condom and puts it on him, making Sherlock gasp. Then Victor squeezes some lube and rubs it onto Sherlock’s cock, while seeking his mouth and kissing him.

        “Come on” Victor says, barely a whisper. He lies on his belly again, half turned, one leg bent, his arse slightly pushed up, his face buried between his forearms, as if bracing himself for the onslaught. Sherlock breath is hitched, taking in the sight of the body ready to greet him. He gets between Victor’s thighs, aligns himself. More lube, can’t have enough lube. Swallows, finds the spot, takes a nervous breath, and starts pushing in.

        “Ahhhhh fuuuuck” Victor gasps as Sherlock slides all the way in smoothly.

        “Are you al…?” Sherlock’s throat is choked, his nerves on edge as the sensation overpowers him.

        “Fuck me Sherlock” Victor mutters, pushing down on him, making Sherlock squirm.

        Sherlock draws out and in, and moans.

        “This is... I’m not....” he draws out and in again. “Fuck Victor, I’m not gonna last” he says, bloody embarrassed.

        “Just go for it” says Victor, pushing down again. “Doesn’t matter. Just fuck me.”

        Sherlock starts thrusting, feeling that he is going to come at any minute.

        “Sherlock, oh fuck” Victor pushes his hips back to meet him and clenches around him and Sherlock, his fingers pressed deep on Victor’s hips, can’t fucking think clearly. He shoves it in once, twice, and he’s off, coming with a small moan that doesn’t really begin to cover the experience or the bright sparks he’s still seeing when he closes his eyes.

        He comes back to it, his heart pounding in his chest, miserably aware that Victor is very, very far from sated. He slides out slowly, exhaling sharply. Victor turns around and sits up, still hard, fucking huge, bigger than Sherlock has ever seen him. Victor gets the condom off him, tights a knot on it. Wraps his arms around Sherlock and kisses him gently at first, then fiercely.

        “Do you want me to blow you?” asks Sherlock, between kisses.

        “No. I want to fuck you.” mutters Victor, seeking his eyes as he says so.

        Sherlock nods, and nods again, the very picture of determination.

         “Go wash” says Victor. “I’ll wait.”

         Sherlock makes for the bathroom, feeling a bit weak at the knees. He washes himself and catches a peak of his face in the mirror. So that happened.

         “Sherlock?” calls Victor from the bed. Sherlock snaps out of it. With a shiver of anticipation and nerves churning in his stomach, he approaches the bed. Victor welcomes him by his side, stroking his face, looking at him with his usual, trademark blend of affection, heat and humour. Victor’s eyes travel over Sherlock’s body, and his lips follow, little kisses on Sherlock’s neck and chest and side that make him quiver, while Victor’s hand rakes up and down his back. Sherlock’s breathing has become superficial again, and he is not completely surprised when he starts to feel heat pooling in his underbelly. They’re kissing heatedly now, and Victor climbs on top, while Sherlock wraps his legs around him, trapping Victor’s rock hard cock between their bodies, making him groan.

        Now Sherlock holds Victor’s head and pushes him down.

        “What do you want?” says Victor, his sex voice caressing Sherlock’s ears. He’s always goading him, always making him say it out loud.

        “Suck me” whispers Sherlock.

        Victor kisses, nuzzles and rubs his face all the way down Sherlock’s chest and stomach. Wraps his fist around Sherlock’s cock, not so soft anymore. Touches the tip with his tongue, rubs the frenulum side to side, then pinches it with his lips. After lifting his face an instant to give Sherlock a smouldering glare, he presses his lips hard around the head and continues rubbing the frenulum with his tongue, while he clenches his fist around the shaft. He takes him all in, hollowing his cheeks, and Sherlock covers his face with his hands, moaning. Victor cups his sack and fumbles it while the other hand keeps stroking and clenching, and his tongue keeps playing around the folds and ribs at the tip of Sherlock’s cock, now completely hard and throbbing.

        Victor raises his head, smiling smugly at Sherlock’s frustrated groan. He reaches for the lube and slicks his fingers. Sherlock quickly props himself up on his elbows to see, his chest heaving, his heart pounding. Victor locks eyes with him for a second, circles a fingertip around his entrance, and as he sucks him in hard, he slips a finger in. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, and Sherlock takes it easily and greedily, his hands flat on the headboard to stay himself. Two fingers. Three. Now Victor scissors his fingers, stretching him, and that is a bit weirder. But Victor’s mouth is driving him insane and it all rolls into one swirl of sensation.

        Victor stops and looks up, locking eyes with him. Sherlock swallows and nods.

        “Yes, what” murmurs Victor. “Say it. Ask me.” It’s that bloody begging kink again.

        “God. You’re a fucking…” He huffs, his patience worn threadbare thin by lust and anticipation. “Just do it. Fuck me” says Sherlock.

        Victor gets him to lift his hips and puts a pillow under Sherlock. He gets a condom on with practiced ease, slicks himself up, and fixes him with his eyes, glinting with moonlight. Victor guides his cock with his hand, pushes in slowly, their eyes locked. Sherlock takes a breath, Victor pushes in and Sherlock yields, biting his lip. It doesn’t hurt, it burns, it stings a bit. Victor fists Sherlock’s cock slowly as he makes his way in, until he’s buried to the hilt, and they’re both shuddering and panting.

        “Yeah?” says Victor, his voice barely a breath.

        Sherlock nods again, his head rearing up to see where Victor’s cock is connected with his body.

        Victor pulls out and thrusts in again, not too deep, not too fast, and again. Sherlock feels a flow of heat hearing the shuddering, whimpery sounds Victor makes as he tries to keep control of himself. He wraps his thighs around Victor’s waist and rocks his hips.

         “Fuck me” he mutters, fucking him with his eyes just as Victor always does.

        Victor starts shoving in, biting his lip, his eyes fluttering shut as if it’s all too much. Sherlock takes a sharp breath and then Victor’s pounding is pushing him up the mattress, until Sherlock has to brace himself on the headboard, as he moans again and again, in time with the slap of their bodies.

        Sherlock looks at Victor’s face, his eyes heavy-lidded, mouth parted, the remote expression, the muscles on his arms and belly tensing, bulging and relaxing as he rolls his hips against Sherlock’s arse.

        “Victor...” mouths Sherlock, barely audible, between breathy moans. You're so beautiful, he wants to say.

        Victor is hammering him relentlessly, propped on his palms by Sherlock’s body, pleasure building up, so dense and hot and maddening.

        “Yeah, oh... yeah, like that...” groans Sherlock, digging his fingers in the flesh of Victor’s shoulders and around his neck.

        His cock is throbbing, and he wants to touch himself, but he doesn’t. He grabs onto Victor’s arms instead, so firm and smooth, the muscle rock hard, holding Victor’s weight. They’re both sweating, and it should be repellent to Sherlock, but it isn’t.

        Sherlock is feeling the build up to orgasm, and he lifts his head to see it, to see Victor’s cock burying deep inside him again and again. He hears himself moaning and whimpering and cursing, and is shocked at the noises he is making. He arches his back, pushing his hips down to meet Victor's thrusts, his thighs wrapped tight around Victor's waist. He wants to shout and beg and call his name, but he feels timid.

       “Harder” he mutters, because that's all he can manage. 

        Victor’s hand wraps around his cock and starts tossing him, while he pounds into him again and again.

        "Victor I'm c...coming” Sherlock’s voice is strained and whimpery.

        He comes gasping and moaning. Victor fucks him and strokes him through it, as Sherlock feels the come shoots on his belly. He is shuddering, jolting with the aftershocks, the sensation of fullness and Victor’s weight on him still so new and overpowering, and Victor’s eyes on him owning him to the core.

        He gets a second of respite, while Victor quickly wipes his hand on the sheets. Then Victor kisses him and reaches for Sherlock’s hands, tangling their fingers together, and starts fucking him again fast and hard, his face crumpled, sweat on his brow, his mouth parted. Sated, Sherlock can look at him without distraction, and sees the moment when Victor starts to come - in his frown, in the tension of his almost pained expression. His movements become frenetic, desperate, his moans a higher-pitch. He is pounding very quickly now, his fingers digging into Sherlock’s hands. Then he stops, exhaling sharply, and he fucks him hard again once, twice, with a short moan. And he is still, breathing raggedly, quivering, his eyes shut.

        He opens his eyes and leans over to touch his lips against Sherlock’s, not so much a kiss as a caress. Sherlock’s thighs release their grip around Victor’s waist. Victor stays pressed flush against Sherlock’s body, as his breathing slowly goes back to normal.

        Sherlock feels he should say something. Victor seems spaced out. Sherlock seeks his mouth again for a kiss, Victor returns it and seems to snap out of it. He slides out of him gently, and sits up on his heels. Rubs his eyes and face, movements slower than usual. He gets rid of the condom, drinks some water from a bottle and passes it on to Sherlock. Then he flops next to him, his chest still heaving with slightly quickened, superficial breathing. He reaches for the cigarettes and lights two. One he passes to Sherlock, who can’t stop looking at him but can’t bring himself to ask what he wants to ask.

        Victor is taking slow, deep drags of his fag, his eyes lost somewhere in the carved wood beams shrouded in darkness above their heads.

        “Was it good?” says Sherlock, at last.

        Victor laughs. Turns to him, kisses him strong and deep.

        “Yes, it was good” he whispers. He sighs, lies back again. “Fuck, I’m still not all back.” Another sigh. “You’re so fucking sexy. The way you just…” grasps for words. “You just let go, and took me in, and begged me. God, I don’t know how I lasted so long. I was afraid to move at first, I thought I would just go off there and then."

        Sherlock is bursting with pride, glad that the details of his expression will get lost in the dim light of the moon. He would prefer if nobody saw him so pleased with himself because of that.

        “What about you?” Victor asks.

        Sherlock finds himself unbearably shy all of a sudden.

        “You saw it” he says, bashful.

        Victor laughs. “Yes, I saw. I meant, how was it to fuck me.” He takes a drag and tries to focus on the matter in hand.

        “It wasn’t great, was it?” he says, trying to sound dismissive and not as embarrassed as he feels.

        “Darling, my first time I don’t think I actually managed to move at all” Victor laughs. Sherlock thinks it’s bollocks, but he appreciates the sentiment. “You know what, you’re right. It was terrible. You’ll have to practice more” and gives him a grope and a wink.

        Sherlock doesn’t smile at the easy joke. Victor grabs his hand. They entwine their fingers.

        “I love you” says Victor.

        “Me too” says Sherlock.

        There’s a long silence on Victor’s side of the bed.

        Oh, thinks Sherlock. So that happened.

        Victor turns around, rearing his head, and kisses him, and hugs him tight, tighter. Sherlock wraps himself around Victor’s body, still overheated and moist with sweat, and hugs back.

        He does not know where that came from. He wonders if it’s true or just the endorphins talking. With his face buried in Victor’s neck, drunk on Victor’s scent and his warmth and his love, he decides that, just this once, he will not give this another thought. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which natural history plays a part, and these two idiots allow Mycroft to do a lot of damage.
> 
> ' “Mr. Trevor.” He swallows. “I’m not sure I can make Victor happy. I’m not sure I can make anybody happy.” A fine, cruel blade is piercing his side as he says this.
> 
> Mr. Trevor also looks down to his shoes and shifts in place, hands still clasped behind his back.
> 
> “Perhaps you should let my son be the judge of that?” he says at last.
> 
> Sherlock also chooses his next words with care.
> 
> “I’m afraid that Victor doesn’t always know what is best for him” he says.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally!  
> Thank you Cloisteredself, as always, for your keen eye and your support, here, there and everywhere. *BIG BIG HUGS*. (All remaining mistakes are my own.)

        “Morning” says Charles Trevor (freshly showered and shaved, in pale weekend casual clothes) when Sherlock steps into the kitchen. Sherlock is startled, frozen in place, in the middle of a yawn. He covers his mouth with one hand and tries to force it to shut.

        “Pardon me” he says when he is able to. “Morning sir”

        “Charles, please” says the old man, beckoning him to come over. “Kettle’s just boiled” he says.

        Sherlock makes his way slowly to the cupboard for a mug, trying very, very hard to keep a blank expression. He feels a pinch of discomfort in his arse at every step, and he is only too aware that he has modified his walk to keep an analgesic position, which can be best described as kind of stiff. He wonders how observant mr. Trevor is, and how good he himself is at keeping up the act. _(Make me proud.) Shut up Mycroft!_ At least he is washed and wearing day clothes. He doesn’t think he could face this in his pyjamas.

        Coffee. Where was the sugar? Now he is expected to perch on one of those bar stools by the kitchen island, in front of Mr. Trevor. He sits down, with a wince. Now Mr. Trevor definitely must have noticed. If he has, he doesn’t comment.

        “So, have you made plans for the day?” asks Mr. Trevor.

        “Not that I know of, sir.” Mr. Trevor pulls a mock chastising face that’s the spitting image of his son. “Charles” corrects Sherlock.

        “Are you enjoying your stay at Donnithorpe?”

        _(Do try not to blush like that.) Shut up, Mycroft!_

        “Yes s-Charles. I had never been to this part of the country.”

         “It’s a lovely time of the year, although I find May or early June are the months when this place is in its prime.  We’re in luck this year. The previous summers have been awfully rainy.”

         “Yes.” Because he can’t think of anything to say.

         They sip at their drinks.

         “The head-gardener, Mr. Sears, should be popping up later. My son tells me you found a nest of some sort of unusual insect...?”

         “Yes, near the pond. I think it’s a hive of _bombus sylvarum_ , a type of bee. They have become increasingly rare this far north. Perhaps you should get somebody to look into it, since Victor says you are interested in conservation matters.”

         “I will. Are you interested in insects then?”

         “Yes.”

         “You are a man of many interests.”

         Sherlock doesn’t say anything.

         “Hasn’t Victor shown you the entomology room?”

         “No.”

          Mr. Trevor rolls his eyes, and again Sherlock is shocked at how much he looks like his son when he pulls certain expressions.

         “What in the world have you been doing all week then?” exclaims mr. Trevor.

         Sherlock blanks. Mycroft is pissing himself laughing in his mind - or rather sniggering under his nose, which is as much as he’s ever seen Mycroft laugh.

         “We’ve been to the beach and to town” he says. “And to the village a few times.”

         “But he hasn’t shown you the house? This boy of mine. Hopeless!” Sherlock wonders if mr. Trevor knows how badly a light comment like that would hurt his son - Sherlock doesn’t know much about people, but this much he knows.

         “I’m afraid it’s my fault” he says, jumping in Victor’s defense. “I thought we should make the best of the weather so I’ve insisted in going out every day.” He lies without a second thought.

         Mr. Trevor looks at him fondly. Oh, but he’s perceptive. _(Not too perceptive, let’s hope.) Shut up Mycroft!_

        “Well, perhaps I could show you around, if you wish. I do think you would find the entomology collection remarkable. One of the historical owners of this house fancied himself a naturalist. I’m no expert, but I’ve been told that the collection, while eccentric and far from thorough, is by no means insignificant. My wife had a good go at trying to systematise what is there. If nothing else, you might find it curious.”

        “Yes.” He coughs.”That would be nice.”

        “Is my son still sleeping?”

        “He was when I got up.”

        “Then, if you’re up to it, we can make our way to the east wing now, before he takes over all of your time again. Do bring your coffee along.”

         “Not necessary.” Sherlock gulps it all down, near boiling hot as it still is.

         He slides down from the bar stool with another grimace, but this time mr. Trevor is not looking his way.

 

        The studio is a lovely room, very bright, the walls lined with glass-door cabinets and narrow filing drawers made to lodge the shallow specimen trays, each with a little brass tag engraved with a cryptic reference number. Mr. Trevor throws the windows open to let the early morning breeze come flowing in, and takes a seat on the sill of the bay window, while sipping at his mug of tea, giving Sherlock free leave of the room.

        Sherlock roams around, has a peek at the display of antique scientific instruments and paraphernalia, and then opens up a few drawers, for lack of anything better to do. The specimens look coated in a patina of permanent dust, and the focus seems to be set heavily on South American species. Many of them Sherlock has never seen before. His interest in entomology only goes as far as it has an application in forensics (and he does try to keep that circumscribed to an area one can reach, realistically speaking), so his knowledge is quite limited to Europe, but his mind has been known to wander, and wander it does because, if nothing else, insects are beautiful.

        “Some of these came from the other end of the world. We’ve found correspondence between Lord Lowry, the man who started the collection, and Wallace, the naturalist, and a couple of historians who have had a look concur that the man could have sent a couple of specimens himself.”

         Sherlock turns to him, his curiosity piqued.

         “Which ones?”

         Mr. Trevor stands up and makes for a cabinet to his right. He extracts a shallow glass-topped box with a collection of beetles arranged around an open-winged bat. He hands it over to Sherlock.

         “Remarkable” says Sherlock, after taking a long time to examine it, and hands it back. Mr. Trevor doesn’t take it.

         “Keep it” he says.

         “I couldn’t possibly.”

         “Please. I insist. It’s evident that you can appreciate its worth.”

         Sherlock takes a deep breath.

         “Mr. Trevor I...”

         “Please, Sherlock,” cuts Mr. Trevor, his expression firm.

         Sherlock looks at the box in his hands again.

         “Thank you” says Sherlock.

         Mr. Trevor rests his mug on the window sill and clasps his hands behind his back. He’s obviously steeling himself for an uncomfortable talk. Sherlock tries frantically to think of something to say to extricate himself from the situation.

         “You are a very special young man,” says Mr. Trevor at large. _(That’s one word for it.) Shut up Mycroft!_

         “My son he...” he struggles with words, “he cares for you, that much is plain to see. And I’m glad of it.”

         Sherlock nods, and internally wishes for a tectonic ridge to reveal itself under Norfolk right this minute and start spewing lava on their heads as it swallows the house whole, so that this can end, and he suspects Mr. Trevor feels pretty much the same. And yet the man proceeds onwards regardless, blast him.

         “I just wanted you to know that,” says Mr. Trevor, “because I’m afraid I haven’t always been understanding enough with my son... with my son being gay.” He is choosing his words with care, trying to be brave with his choices. He harrumphs again. “I’m not homophobic, I really am not, but I was raised at a time when the perception of such things was that all homosexuals lived and died lonely and unhappy. I really didn’t want that for my son. I was... I was ignorant and I hurt him, and I wanted to make it clear that I don’t think like that anymore. I educated myself on the subject as best I could, and I learned that I was wrong. But even if I hadn’t, I could not think the way I used to, when I see how he… how he is with you.”

        Sherlock casts his eyes down, and looks at the box without seeing it. He clears his throat.

        “Mr. Trevor.” He swallows. “I’m not sure I can make Victor happy. I’m not sure I can make anybody happy.” A fine, cruel blade is piercing his side as he says this. _  
_

Mr. Trevor also looks down to his shoes and shifts in place, hands still clasped behind his back.

        “Perhaps you should let my son be the judge of that?” he says at last.

        Sherlock also chooses his next words with care.

        “I’m afraid that Victor doesn’t always know what is best for him” he says.

         A protracted silence.

        “Well, I don’t know you, but he has proven me wrong a few times already. May I suggest you give him an opportunity to prove you wrong too?”

        Sherlock feels his eyes tearing up and he looks away.

        Mr. Trevor clears his throat, puts a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, clenches it, removes it.

        “I better go find Mr. Sears. He’s an early riser. Make yourself at home. Or better still, go wake up my son. It’s half past nine already.” He leaves him be, bless him.

        Sherlock has been rubbing the box in his hand absentmindedly throughout their exchange. The glass is all smeared.

       The urge to cry has cleared. He makes for the tower. He almost forgets his limp. 

*

        Victor is stretching his arms when Sherlock walks into the room.

        “There you are” he stifles a yawn and pats the bed next to him.

        “Wait. I’ll...” Sherlock starts making for the wardrobe where his bag is, to put the box away.

        “What is this?” Victor says, his arm outstretched, palm upwards.

         Sherlock changes course and makes for the bed, to hand Victor the box.

         “Your father gave it to me.”

         Victor examines it.

         “The Wallace box” he says, arching his eyebrows. “Wow.”

         Sherlock stares at him. The many, many things mr. Trevor should know about his son that he doesn’t.

         “Have you two had a heart to heart then?” says Victor, handing the box back.

         “We just talked insects” lies Sherlock.

         Victor gives him a suspicious look, but lets it drop. He takes Sherlock’s free hand.

         “Are you alright?”

         Sherlock nods and sits by his side on the bed, grimacing with a prickle of pain. Victor notices and gives him a sheepish look.

         “Oh fuck, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I was too rough last night.” he strokes Sherlock’s thigh. “Is it very sore?”

         “Sore enough.”

         “It only lasts two or three days.”

         Sherlock blanches. Victor laughs.

         “Oops, sorry, not funny.”

         “Aren’t you sore?” asks Sherlock.

         “Nope.”

         “Good. Then we can have another go later.”

         Victor gives him a look of fake shock.

         “Darling, you’re insatiable!”

         Sherlock twists a smirk.

         “You just want the practice, don’t you?” says Victor, and winks. He mutters “Don’t worry, darling, by the end of the month we’ll have you ready for the Olympics.” He pulls Sherlock close by the neck of his t-shirt and kisses him. “You look hot in this. Black suits you” he mutters. “But you’ll bake in the sun.”

        “I won’t go in the sun then. You need a shower” says Sherlock.

        “Charming” Victor laughs, but he stretches again and gets up. He makes his way to the bathroom, in full naked glory.

        “Are you watching?” says Victor without turning his head as he walks.

        “Yes.”

        Victor chuckles.

        “Good” he says as the shower starts running.

 

 *

        The house opens up for the weekend. By the time Sherlock and Victor come down, Mrs. Northam is in the foyer. They say hello and ask whether there are any groups booked in for today. Yes, two, in the afternoon, but she thinks there are some spontaneous visitors already parking outside.

        “There’s a fête in the village, it should attract some people over.”

        “Oh, yeah! The fête!” exclaims Victor, much too cheerfully for Sherlock’s taste.

        Sherlock waits until they are both outside before he makes his mind clear.

        “No chance” he declares.

        “Oh, come on. It will be fun!”

         “Morris dancing, tourists and homemade jam stalls” he says, in the tone other people would employ to talk about the gut parasites one can catch from drinking polluted water in the Amazon. “Not a chance” he insists, hoping he is making himself clear.

         “And dancing” says Victor dreamily, clasping Sherlock’s hands and pulling him for a wide circle. Then he holds him close, looking him in the eye, smiling so brightly that it sweeps Sherlock’s snarky comeback away. They melt into a long, long snog.

         The gravel crackles a few steps away from them. They look around to see Mr. Sears and Mr. Trevor with strained smiles on their faces.

         “Morning dad. Roger” says Victor, his lips pink, thoroughly kissed.

         “Good morning” says Mr. Trevor. “You finally deigned to get out of bed then” his tone is condescending but kind.

          “Oh, come on, it’s Saturday!” smiles Victor, slipping easily into his spoilt brat personna. “Is everything in order, Roger?” he says to the head gardener.

          They chat briefly about a relatively harmless plague on the roses by the conservatory, and leave them to continue their tour of the grounds, probably much relieved.

 

          “These are mom’s roses they were talking about” explains Victor to Sherlock on their way to the car. “She planted them. That’s why my dad makes such a big fuss about some poxy mildew.”

          “I understand” says Sherlock. More or less. Sentiment.

          They climb inside the car.

          “We’re not going to the fête, are we?” says Sherlock.

          Victor throws him a wink. Sherlock rolls his eyes.

 *

          Home churned ice cream sweetens Sherlock’s mood, and hand made fudge pretty much seals his jaws shut, preventing him from moaning, which was probably the plan all along. Victor drags him amid the stalls and the people (so many people!), while chatting to the vendors at every chance he gets, and charming samples out of the trees for both of them.

          “You don’t have to buy _everything_ ” moans Sherlock, the handles of half a dozen unmarked plastic bags digging into the fingers of his left hand, laden with homemade bread rolls, homemade sausages, homemade scones and god knows what else, because he stopped paying attention a while ago. He has his second ice cream cone in his other hand that’s beginning to drip. (It’s hot, it's sunny, and Sherlock is indeed baking in full black, but damned if he is going to say one word about it.)

          Victor wipes some ice cream from the side of Sherlock’s mouth and sucks his finger slowly with a mock sex glare –which still manages to do things to Sherlock anyway, mock or not.

         “Shut up and eat” Victor replies, with his best husky voice. Sherlock bites a smirk. He likes it when Victor has no patience for his crap.

          There’s a band playing something remotely celtic, with a couple of circles of people chain dancing in front of the stage, some with white costumes and ribbons and flowers in their hair. They find a spot under an oak to watch. Sherlock scowls, but Victor smiles and looks on like a kindly fertility god, clapping his hands, a small hoard of bags at his feet, tapping to the rhythm. Sherlock watches him unblinking with what he realises to some people must be a creepy fixed stare.

           Mycroft would know better. He would _see_ it, see Sherlock, and roll his eyes and throw him a scathing remark or two, or perhaps just _that_ stare. What does he always say about caring? The simple truth of the matter is, Sherlock can’t peel his eyes off his boyfriend, the man is made of sunshine and beauty and joy, and Sherlock _adores_ him.

           There is nothing he would like more than just hug him, kiss him in the face of the world, and just feel happy and proud and joyful. Instead, he is there looking sour, stewing in self-loathing, thinking how badly he does not deserve him, and how much everything is going to hurt. There is no escaping out of this situation unharmed, not for him, not for Victor. He wishes he could just vanish into thin air, as if he had never been, never met Victor, Victor never met him. 

         Sherlock takes the pounding from his own brain with a straight face, but if he could see himself now, even he would notice that his eyes look dull and quite dead.

         A girl comes over, all dressed in white. She makes Victor lean down, and puts a crown of little flowers on his head -he accepts it, with a delighted burst of laughter. Then she pulls him over with her by the hand to join the circle of dancers. Victor tries to drag Sherlock with him, but Sherlock shakes him away and backs off. Victor winks at him and joins the dancers and, without even trying, the whole world starts orbiting around him once more, always the tallest, blondest, handsomest, most graceful, brightest of them all. The sight pierces Sherlock’s side like a lance and makes breathing hard and painful.

         When Victor comes back to him, sweating, panting, smiling, and he kisses him, Sherlock feels many eyes on them. The burning lump in his throat flares up.

         Victor sees him. He frowns, full of concern, uncomprehending, but perfectly conscious that there is no point in asking what is wrong. He just clasps Sherlock’s arm and gives it a gentle squeeze.

         “Home?” he says.

         Sherlock nods.

 *

         Stuffed with sweets, they skip lunch, and instead lounge on the green, where some of the visitors to the house are having a picnic. There are children running around, blowing bubbles, kicking a ball. Two little squirts pester them to rescue a ball stuck on a branch. Victor obliges. Sherlock holds his hands in a stirrup to help him climb.

        The moms swoon over Victor, thanking him in every possible form available to the English tongue, their body language shouting out loud many other things besides gratitude. After a while, Victor starts casually stroking the small of Sherlock’s back, while he tells them for the umpteenth time “no problem.” They finally get it and leave, pouting “such a shame”. Victor rolls his eyes at that, with a kinder smile than they deserve.

         “It must be exhausting” says Sherlock, when they sit down again on the grass. He is feeling rather numb inside at the moment, except for a dull, unfocused throb, as if he had been ran over by a car. A metaphorical, psychological car.

        “I have no idea what you’re talking about” mumbles Victor jokingly. He lies down and takes Sherlock’s hand in his.

        They doze off under the dappled shade of a big old birch. The sky is clear and the blue so mighty. It takes the edge off Sherlock’s blackest thoughts. The summer doesn’t care if a boy wishes to vanish, wishes he had never been. Perhaps the whole sad business doesn’t matter so much after all. Perhaps he will be alright, for a while, and perhaps that is enough.

        At some point, Sherlock gets a text. When Victor asks what is it, Sherlock lies.

 

         “Has Mycroft ever been here?” he does say after a while.

         Victor takes a drag of his cigarette, lets the silence stretch.

         “We met here” he says eventually, his tone carefully neutral. “Why?”

         “Nothing” Sherlock says.

         They go in the house soon after. Something in the air has changed. A storm is brewing, the air smells of it, and Sherlock says something about a headache. Victor brushes dust, twigs and leaves off his clothes and then off Sherlock’s back, with a grope to his arse.

         “Don’t you wish all these people would just fucking leave, so I could have my wicked way with you right under this tree?” he mutters into Sherlock’s ear.

         Sherlock wishes he could smile, but all he does is shake him off and look like thunder.

*

         

         They meet with Mr. Trevor in the small kitchen for dinner.

         "This is lovely, son, what's in this sauce?" says Mr. Trevor.  
  
         Victor replies dismissively, “It’s just cheese, dad”, but his face lights up.

 

          Sherlock knows for a fact that there’s also onion, nutmeg, white pepper and white wine in that sauce, and that Victor hasn't moved from the stove for the thirty-seven minutes it took to make it. 

         “Will you be taking a flat in London again?” asks Mr. Trevor, pouring himself some more wine.

         “Not right now.” Victor casts a quick sideways glance at Sherlock and shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. 

         “You could come for the weekends” insists his father. “We’d be able to see you more often. You’d be happier there if you had your own place. With Sherlock, of course.”

         Victor keeps throwing looks at Sherlock, who is rolling a mouthful of spaghetti around his fork as if precision is key. He is very uncomfortable himself all of a sudden.

         “I don’t know, dad, I’m alright at school for now. Aren’t we, Sherlock?”

         Sherlock shrugs.

         “Think about it” says Mr. Trevor.

         Victor nods, obviously trying to put the subject to the rest. Sherlock keeps rolling and rolling. 

         “Ok. We will” says Victor, having a sip of his drink.

         Sherlock is suddenly gasping for air.

         “I’m going for a walk” he says, standing up brusquely, abandoning his laden fork and his dinner half eaten.

         Charles Trevor gives him a strange look and a tiny, concerned smile. Victor frowns, but he does not look surprised. If anything, he looks resigned. Sherlock strides off, feeling like punching a wall.

 

          He takes the way to the big hall down the gallery. The triple-height windows opening to the night show him nothing but his own reflection. It’s disagreeable, the corridor’s dim night lights queasy. He sees a security guard pass by a window without seeing him. It feels eerie.

       He takes out his phone and checks the message again:

 

        _Ever seen the nautical room? MH_

 *

           Victor turns up fourty-five minutes later, and finds Sherlock perched on a window sill.

           “There you are!” says Victor, walking up to him, reaching up to brush a hand on Sherlock’s face.

           “Is that the nautical room?” Sherlock says, unresponsive to Victor’s touch.

           Only then does Victor notice that the door in front of where Sherlock sits is cracked open.

          “Have you been talking to Mycroft?” he says, his eyes narrowing to a slit.

          “He texts me” admits Sherlock. There is no point in denying it.

           Victor exhales miserably.

           “I can’t fucking believe this” he mutters under his breath, taking a few vigorous strides away, as it that will calm him down.

           “Is that the nautical room?” Sherlock repeats.

           Victor hisses between his teeth and walks furiously to the third door to the right.

           “No, this is it.” He yanks the door open and turns to face him. Sherlock walks over, treading carefully, not meeting his eyes, and steps in. Victor fumbles around the door, his rage making him clumsy, and turns on the light. Sherlock has a cautious look around, hands clasped behind his back.

           “What happened here?” he says after a while.

           Victor exhales noisily, his eyes still narrowed and cold

           “Why do you want to know?” he asks.

           “Because I do.”

           “You really don’t.”

           “Yes I do.”

           “No you don’t.”

           “Victor, this is childish.”

           “You’re right, it is. Stop asking.”

           “Victor, tell me.”

           “What for?”

           “ _Tell me!_ ”

           That bark makes them both jump.

           Victor's expression is now twisted with anger. Sherlock is shocked by it. Victor has never, ever looked at him like that. He wishes he never had.

           In a tightly controlled tone that makes it all a hundred times more cutting, Victor says,

           “I sucked him against the door, then I fucked him on the desk.”

           Sherlock fucking sees it in his head. He _sees_ it. He feels blank.

          “Now you know” says Victor. “Happy?”

          For a second it looks as if he wants to say something else, but then he just turns around and walks away.

 *

             It must have been half an hour. He finds Victor in the bedroom he used as a child, just as he thought. There are still toys and picture books on the shelves, and framed photos of a happy family of three on the walls. He is sitting on the floor in the dark, with his back against the little bed under the window, hugging his knees, and he has been crying. Sherlock takes a few careful steps towards him and then kneels in front of him, slowly. He lightly touches Victor’s head. Victor lets out a dry sob, and opens his arms to welcome him. Sherlock slides between Victor’s knees to get closer and hugs him around the waist, all curled up on himself as a hedgehog.

             “I can’t help it” mutters Sherlock against Victor’s shoulder.

             “Hush” says Victor. He finds his face and kisses him. Sherlock is pressing himself as tight as he can to Victor’s chest.

             “I’m sorry” he says.

             “I know. I’m sorry too” Victor cradles him.

             Sherlock thinks he should be the one doing the soothing. He lifts his head and kisses him, and Victor responds with his eyes shut tight. Sherlock seeks Victor’s tongue with his and slides his hands under Victor’s shirt. When he palms his crotch through his clothes, Victor pushes him away.

            “What is this?” he says.

            “What?”

            “Are you trying to... to fuck it better?”

            Sherlock sits back and scrubs his face.

           “I don’t know.”

           Victor throws his head back against the wall and lets his arms fall off. He looks tired and miserable.

           “You never fucking know anything” he grumbles, his eyes lost somewhere over Sherlock’s shoulder.

            Sherlock feels cold, a knot in his throat.

           “Victor I’m not...” A huff. He lets whatever he was going to say die on his tongue. He doesn’t know what it was anyway. It doesn’t matter. He stands up, rigid, and walks away. He feels stunned.

 

          Halfway down the corridor, he hears Victor’s muffled steps on the rug. He waits for Victor to catch up with him.

          Victor tries to look at him, his eyes soft with sadness. He opens his mouth, struggling to find the words. He strokes Sherlock’s face and brings their foreheads together.

          “Forgive me” he says, his eyes closed.

          Sherlock is standing there with his arms hanging limp by his sides. Last time he tried for physical comfort he blew it. Victor wraps him in his arms and holds him for a long time.

          “Should I hug you?” Sherlock says after a while.

          Victor makes a noise between a snort and a sob.

          “Yes, for fuck's sake, Sherlock, hug me” he says.

          Sherlock does, awkward and hesitant.

          When they separate, Victor is able look at him again.

          “What are we” he says, a quiet exclamation rather than a question. He expects no answer, so Sherlock doesn’t offer one. “Let’s go to bed” Victor says, his voice soft and weak, taking Sherlock by the hand. They walk down the corridor hand in hand, quietly and stiffly and in many ways treading on eggshells.

         Once they are in the bedroom, Victor starts undressing himself, movements efficient, almost businesslike.

         “Take your clothes off” he instructs Sherlock with a silken tone.

          Sherlock doesn’t move one finger and just watches him instead. He is still smarting from what Victor said to him. Victor, thank heavens, misunderstands his inaction. He takes in Sherlock's stare, shakes his head in mock exasperation, and proceeds to strip in a much less efficient way, with half a smile that doesn't really reach his eyes, but keeps getting near it with every piece of clothing that falls off him. With a theatrical gesture he drops his last garment to the floor and tilts his head, weight leaning on one leg, a Praxitelian marble made skin, bone and flesh. Sherlock rakes his eyes over him from head to toe.

          “Satisfied?” says Victor, teasing.

          “Hardly” says Sherlock. Long may the misunderstanding continue.

          “Well, come on then!” urges Victor, striding over to help Sherlock out of his clothes. Again, Sherlock is pliant, observing Victor’s face intently. Victor is still sad, that much Sherlock can see. He tries to think of something to say to get Victor to talk to him, and fails. Perhaps it’s for the best. He doesn’t have a clue what he could say to make it better. Victor seems determined to fuck this problem away, which is ironic, considering their quarrel earlier.

          “Sit the fuck down already!” Victor mumbles, chuckling, popping him out of his bubble and pushing him onto the bed to get Sherlock’s trousers off. Sitting is still painful, so Sherlock shifts to make himself more comfortable.

          With Sherlock sat on the bed naked, Victor kneels on the mattress, straddling his lap, and kisses him.

          “Do you want to fuck me?” he says with his sex voice at full gear, pressing a hundred little kisses to Sherlock’s face, mouth and neck.

          “Yes” Sherlock gulps. “But how do I...”

           “You have to think about something else.” Kisses his neck, his mouth, raking his fingers up and down Sherlock's back. Their cocks are hardening between them.

           “Like what?” Sherlock chokes out, eyes fluttering.

           “I think about laws. Trade laws. Numbers. References.”

           “I don’t know any trade laws.”

           Victor looks around. Spots the Wallace box, still on the bedside table.

           “Entomology.” Nuzzle, kiss. “What do you know about...” he captures Sherlock’s bottom lip between his and pulls it before he lets go “...beetles?”

           Sherlock frowns, concentrating. Victor reaches around him for a condom and some lube from the drawer and gets busy. Sherlock props himself on his palms.

           “Eeerm order of the _Coleoptera_ ” says Sherlock, his mind very much not in it, as he watches Victor fingering himself. Sherlock thinks he will never get used to seeing him like that, the intimacy of it. His heart is pounding in his chest and in his ears.

           Victor kisses Sherlock’s mouth and neck as he puts the condom on him and slicks him up. Then he holds Sherlock’s cock in place and lowers himself onto him, with a hmmm. He makes it look so easy.

           Sherlock sucks in a sharp breath as he feels Victor’s body engulfing him, with its heat and demanding strength. When he’s gone as far as he can go, he exhales, with a whimper. His arms, holding his weight, are trembling.

          “Beetles, Sherlock” murmurs Victor, covering Sherlock’s face and mouth and neck in kisses. Sherlock shuts his eyes and tries.

          “There’s rove beetles, snout beetles, ground beetles, leaf beetles...” His voice is weak and shaky.

          Victor starts riding him, undulating his belly, his chest heaving.

          “Oh god” gasps Sherlock.

          “Latin names” says Victor, and starts tossing himself.

          “ _Staphylinidae_ , _Curculioni_...ah... _dae_ , _Carabidae_ , _Chryso_... _melidae_ , _Scarab_...oh god... _idae_ ”

          Victor is rocking and circling his hips (trying to hit his prostate, Sherlock suspects), his movements as liquid and graceful as his dancing. His ahhhhs and mmmmmhs and fuuuucks are really, really hard to ignore. Sherlock is not thinking about beetles right now.

          “Stop stop stop” Sherlock is panting as if he’s just run the 100 metres. “Too close.”

           Victor’s face, god, his breathing. The little smile. His hand still on his own cock, moving lazily, the other hand hooked around Sherlock’s neck. Waits until Sherlock’s has cooled down a bit and buckles his hips once, testing the waters. Sherlock mmphs. Victor bites his lip in thought.

          “Fungi” says Victor then.“Tell me something about fungi.” He raises and falls down a couple of times, slowly, and jacks himself a bit faster.

          “God... What about... Oh god... What about them?” Sherlock closes his eyes tight.

          “Poisonous mushrooms.” His voice, so husky, yet so controlled. “You must know about that.”

          “What, all of them?” whimpers Sherlock, while Victor starts riding him again.

          “All of them.” Bouncing on Sherlock’s cock rhythmically, and tossing himself off. “Alphabetically.”

          “Oh. Ahhh... _Amanita_ a-a- _abrupta_ , _amanita_ _arocheae_...

          “Oh yes” Bouncing, bouncing. “Fuuuuck yes.”

          “... _Amanita_ _bisporigera_ , _Ama_...god... _nita_ _brunnescens_ , _Amanita_ _exitialis_...”

          “Oh yes, oh yes...”

          “ _Amanita_ _fffarinosa_ , a- _amanita_ _gemmata_...”

          “Oh fuck” Faster, faster.

          “ _Amanita_ _magnivelaris_...”

          “Oh fuuuuuck, ffff… I'm gonna come, Sherlock.”

          “ _Amanita_ _muscaria_...”

          “Sherlock, sod that” he’s jerking off fast, riding him quick and hard now, the smack of his arse reverberating in Sherlocks straining balls.  “Come with me!”

          Sherlock focuses on Victor, his movements becoming heavier, his jaw hanging, frowning, eyes glazed. Sherlock feels him clenching around his cock as he draws several sharp breaths between his teeth, and then he spills on Sherlock’s stomach, stroking himself through it, moaning. He slows down for a bit but he doesn’t stop moving. After a few seconds he opens his eyes and starts bouncing again, fixing Sherlock with his eyes.

          “Come on” he urges him.

          Sherlock doesn’t really need telling. With Victor riding him fast and looking at him like that, it all comes flooding in. Soon he explodes with a loud, breathy moan, and Victor circles his hips for him through the aftershocks, Sherlock’s whole upper body trembling with them.

          They slump on each other, panting hard, shuddering, sweating.

          “Did you come?”

           Sherlock nods.

          “God, that was sexy” says Victor. “I might have discovered a new kink.”

          “Beetles?”

          “It’s either that or the Latin.”

          Sherlock laughs, his forehead on Victor’s shoulder.

          “I love it when you laugh like that” says Victor close to his ear, and pinches his earlobe between his lips. “Your voice is so deep. I feel it in my chest, in my balls.”

          Sherlock flusters.

          “Potty mouth” he scolds him. His breathing is slowing down now. “Victor?”

          “What?” He sounds a bit alarmed, probably fearing that Sherlock will bring the whole thing they've been fucking away up again.

          “Trade laws? Really?” says Sherlock.

          “Tome and page” sighs Victor. Now he sounds relieved. Victor climbs off him with a smile and shaky thighs. Sherlock grunts when he feels his cock sliding out, still half-hard. He takes the condom off, ties a knot like Victor does, while Victor wipes himself clean.

         “Hey,” says Victor, handing him a tissue. Sherlock wipes his belly.

          They both collapse on the bed, light a fag, have a sip of water.

          Victor stretches his legs in the air and massages his thighs.

          'I'll be lucky if I can walk tomorrow' he mutters, lightly.

          Sherlock stares at the smoke snaking up in the air, bright white in the darkened room.

          “I’m sorry about...” he starts after a while.

          “Leave it” cuts Victor, and gives his hand a quick squeeze.

 

        They’re both thinking about Mycroft now, and that’s why nobody speaks. They stub their fags and lie on their sides. Victor rolls him over and spoons him, one long, long leg hooked over his, and they try to sleep. Eventually Victor does, his steady breathing on the nape of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock doesn’t get so much as a wink of sleep until dawn, again.

*

          In the morning they drive Mr. Trevor to the station.

          “Think about the flat in London, son” he says. “Parvati and I would be very happy to see more of you. And Sherlock, of course.”

          “We’ll see, dad.”

          The old man crushes Victor in his arms awkwardly, then braves his son’s eyes for a second and Victor needs to look away, overwhelmed.

          “ _Daaad_ ” he moans, trying to sound annoyed.

          “Love you son” blurts old Trevor out, looking down to his shoes.

          “Me too” mumbles Victor, also looking at his shoes.

           “Young man” says Charles Trevor to Sherlock, patting his back and shaking his hand with a clasp of steel. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” He looks at Sherlock straight in the eye for a few seconds longer than comfortable, his stare laden with meanings and emotions Sherlock simply cannot grasp and must try and deduce.

           “Likewise, sir. Charles. Thank you again for your gift.” Sherlock says, hoping this will end soon.

           Mr. Trevor gives them both one last look, then crosses the barrier to the platform, dragging his wheeled overnight bag behind him.

             

            Sherlock and Victor stay there until he disappears behind a wall.

                     

            Victor drives them back.

            “I liked your dad” says Sherlock out of the blue.

           “He liked you” says Victor, and for a minute there’s simple, plain joy on his face. But it doesn’t take long before his expression becomes again complicated with lots of other things, most of them beyond the reach of Sherlock’s understanding.

 

 

 

**  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few end notes: 
> 
> 1) Lord Lowry is an invention. 
> 
> 2) the Wallace referred is Alfred Russell Wallace, naturalist, outsider to the scientific community. He came up with the theory of Evolution independently from Darwin, and it was a letter of his to the great man sharing his ideas on the subject which prompted Darwin to have the courage to publish his ideas before Wallace took the credit. Wallace always deferred to the greatness of Darwin's mind and rigorous scientific methods. He did travel to South America a lot. I really like the man. 
> 
> 3) I have no idea if you can find bombus sylvarum in Norfolk. I'm no entomologist. I only did some research. It is supposed to be difficult to find except in the south of Britain (in Europe is a different story I think) which is why I chose it. Oh, and because it is a bee, of course. Offended entomologists who might happen to read this, drop a note. I'm here to learn.
> 
> 4) The bat and beetles box... Yup, it's supposed to be the one on the mantelpiece at 221B. I could not resist. I will forever look at that thing and think of the Trevors. I have no idea if the species in there are South American or where are they from.
> 
> 5) I personally have nothing against Morris dancing (at school we used to dance our own Catalan variety of the thing and it was so much fun), but I have yet to find a Brit that doesn't, apart from the ones who actually do it. Don't ask me, ask them. 
> 
> 6) On the biology kink talk, again, should any biologist happen to read this, heartfelt apologies.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock tries, but sometimes the stars are just against it.  
> Also, a Velvet Goldmine-theme party, some scary monsters and super freaks from the past that come to haunt Victor, blond surfer hunks and, finally, some fiddling on the roof at Donnithorpe.
> 
> Oh, and I'm so, so very sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> “… Sherlock, I need you to try” he says, softly.
> 
> “Try what.”
> 
> “Try, for both of us, for this…” He struggles to find the words, and to keep his voice from breaking. “I can’t do it for you. I wish I could. But you need to believe in this or…”
> 
> “I don’t know how.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are references (not detailed or explicit) to underage sex (16) and past drugged sex. A gang bang, to be specific. Consensual, but you know, not pretty. I'm not going to tag for self-harm to not make it confusing, but, you know, exercise good judgement if your trigger warnings are flashing. Or ask me for more details if you're not sure.
> 
> Also, this chapter is angsty as fuck in general. I did tag it though, you were warned.

        Sherlock puts down his book. It’s hot and stuffy and there’s a dull throb at his head. He’s bored, bored, bored.

        He goes to their bedroom determined to get high, and to hell with it. But before he can find the stash, there is the bloody Wallace box. He stops and picks it up, holds it in his hands. God knows why, he’s not really looking. He polishes a smear on the bottom right of the glass with the hem of his shirt. He replaces the box carefully in his bag and leaves the room without his hit. _(You really did like the old man, didn’t you, brother dear?)_

        He finds Victor in what they call the yellow study. Victor did comment that it has a lovely light at this time of the day. He’s sprawled elegantly on an eighteenth century fainting couch, one arm thrown over his head twisting a curl around one finger, which he sometimes does, shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled up, reading a science fiction novel Sherlock spotted in the shelves in the tower room. With robots on the cover, no less. Victor is weird.

        “Shall we go swimming?” says Sherlock abruptly, not bothering with hello.

        Victor raises his eyes from the book, brow knotted, looking as surprised as he looks suspicious.

        “To the beach, you mean?”

        “Yes.”

        Victor frowns even more and does not reply.

        “What?”

        “Are you alright?” says Victor.

        “Yes, of course.” he says. “Slight headache” he adds, in the name of accuracy.

        “You never want to go to the beach.”

_Must he always state the obvious._

        “Well, I do today.”

        “Are you pulling my leg?”

        “No.” He huffs, patience wearing thin. “Headache, Victor. Don’t make me repeat myself. Do you want to go or not?”

        “... Yes, sure.” He sits up and folds the top of the page for a bookmark -which makes Sherlock think of Mycroft with some malice, and how he would cringe at that. “Let me get my things…”

**  
  
**

        At the beach, the early afternoon sun is mercilessly bright, but at least by the seaside there is a breeze, so laden with moisture that it feels as the brush of a damp cloth. They spread their towels and set up the parasol Victor never forgets to bring, because Sherlock’s skin burns so easily.

        They take turns rubbing cream on each other’s backs. Victor so tanned by now, his cheeks and nose dusted with new freckles, his hair a brighter shade of gold. Sherlock is still white, except around the neck and forearms, where he has gone a deep pink. Victor always takes a long time to apply it. Sherlock gives him grief for it, but he’s been known to purr at Victor’s ministrations, and embarrassing situations have been known to happen, which is surely why Victor does it so damned thoroughly.

        When Victor gets up to go for a swim, Sherlock follows him.

        “What?” Victor gapes. “You’re actually going in?”

        “Yes. Close your mouth. You look a bit dim.”

         Victor obeys, but raises his most adventurous eyebrow to heights never reached before.

        “Sherlock, I’m getting worried.” And he only sounds half amused; the rest of it is honest concern.

        “It’s all perfectly alright.” He harrumphs. “I thought you would like the idea.”

        Victor is still wide-eyed, and quite mute.

        “Are you going to cry or something?” asks Sherlock, deadly serious, because he is struggling to decode Victor’s expression and doesn’t know where to begin.

        “I fucking might!” says Victor, but he’s smiling, which strictly speaking doesn’t help at all with Sherlock’s confusion, but oh well. Enigmatic as it is, at least it’s an answer.

        “Come on, I’ll race you!” says Victor, and he runs away, arms flailing, hollering a war cry, curls bouncing.

        Sherlock smiles in spite of himself. Victor, he thinks, shaking his head -and, in the mental equivalent of a whisper, as if trying to hide it from even himself, he adds _my_ _Victor_.

        Victor is as happy as a golden retriever, and just as splashy. He jumps in face first.

        “Fuck, it’s cold!” he shouts when he emerges. “Come ooooon…!” He is whooping and laughing and spattering about and Sherlock feels a bit awkward. There are not many other people at the beach, but he feels as if they are all staring at them.

        With the water half way up his thighs, Sherlock tries to prepare himself. Right. It’s better to do it quickly and not think about it.

        Deep breath. In we go, face first.

        The water seems to kick at him from every direction, constricting his lungs. His head breaks the surface and he gives it a good shake, and… (wait for it…) Here it comes, the hysterics. It’s the strangest thing, but apparently sudden immersion in cold water makes one want to scream and kick and laugh. No point fighting it. He has tried. It’s best to just get it out quickly and be over and done with it. So Sherlock screams and kicks and laughs and takes a few strokes away from the shore until he can’t find the seabed with his feet, and floats there, and yes, ok, perhaps there is something to be said for swimming in open waters after all.

        Victor swims over and kisses him full on the mouth, beaming. He tastes salty, almost bitter. Their mouths struggle to keep their grasp on each other as the waves make them bob and sway. Victor’s flesh feels cold and clammy and alien. It’s sexy in an unexpected way. Sherlock wonders how does one make love in the ocean, and thinks that it might be interesting to try.

        When they come out, Sherlock’s lips are a dark shade of blue. Victor wraps him in a towel and rubs vigorously, for heat. _(Father used to warm you up the same way that summer, if you remember. The one time they tooks us to Cornwall) Yeah, and you did too._ Sherlock closes his eyes and feels good, grounded, found. When they meet each other’s eyes, Sherlock opens his mouth to say something.

        After a minute, when nothing comes out, Victor says “me too.”

        They lay down together for a while, soaking the sunshine in.

        A group of surfers arrive when Victor and Sherlock are picking up to leave. Four girls and one big hunk of a bloke, all of them blonde and tanned and golden. The girls are slim and athletic, the bloke is a Renaissance sculptor’s wet dream (and a lot of present day, not necessarily artistically inclined people’s wet dream too, Sherlock would wager.) Victor does, indeed, sneak a peek or two, and when he finds out Sherlock has noticed, he blushes, although with the day’s tan flushing bright, it’s hard to tell for sure.

        “What? He’s not my type” says Victor to Sherlock’s inquisitive, mildly amused face.

        “Really? So what is your type then?” says Sherlock.

        “Skinny, dark and moody.”

        Sherlock smirks with half his mouth.

        They pad to the car digging their feet sideways deep in the sand, to reach the cooler layer underneath.

        “Any more texts from Mycroft?” says Victor at one point, his voice very nearly devoid of dark undertones, though not quite.

        “No. I saw something in the papers when we went for fags yesterday, about some sort of disturbance in Taiwan. He’s probably caught up with that.”

        Victor has his eyes resolutely aimed at his feet, white with sand dust.

        “He’s hell bent on breaking us up, you know?” he says after a while.

        “I know.”

        Sherlock steps on some reeds. They prickle.

        “I never do what he tells me. In fact, I make a point of doing the opposite” he says.

        “I wish it was that easy” says Victor, sounding glum.

        “Mycroft is not going to split us up” declares Sherlock, completely unbothered by the basis on reality, or lack thereof, of his statement.

        Because even Sherlock Holmes is entitled to a bit of wishful thinking every now and then. Not to mention that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t need anybody’s help to royally fuck up any day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Not even his brother’s.

* * *

        The next afternoon, it is Sherlock again who suggests going to town for ice cream. Again, Victor looks at him as if he suspects an alien from a pod might have stolen his boyfriend’s body, before he agrees and rushes to get them out of the house, just in case Sherlock's resolve -or the hold of the demonic possession from outer space- should falter.

        The cloudy yet hot afternoon finds them on a terrace, flirting over brain-freezing sweet gooeyness, Victor sucking at his spoon in a way that never fails to make Sherlock blush and shuffle in his seat.

        “You’re still a swooning maiden” says Victor, pleased to smugness with the effect he has on him, and thoroughly smitten. “I could do this all day.”

        Sherlock glares, then smiles a tiny little bit and tries to distract himself with thoughts that will ease the strain in his pants.

        “Do her, Sherlock” says Victor a while later, in their shorthand for playing deductions.

        “You try it. You’ve seen me do it enough.”

        Victor ruffles his curls.

        “Hm. I don’t know. She’s… middle income?”

        “Yes.”

        “Er, around forty.”

        “Yes.”

        “… She worries about her appearances.”

        “Yes. Why?”

        “The bag is very expensive. And the jacket.”

        “Is the rest of her clothes expensive?”

        “I don’t think so. The skirt looks Tesco, and the shoes are cheap as fuck.”

        Sherlock chuckles. “So what can you deduce from that?”

        “…That she doesn’t have as much money as she’d like people to think?”

        “Possibly.”

        “What have you got?”

        “She’s a regular swimmer. She has two big dogs, long-haired. She usually cycles.”

        “How can you tell?”

         “The swimming you can tell by her physical complexion and her posture. Different types of exercising build up a certain type of musculature or another. The dogs you can easily tell by the hair on her clothes, and at what height it is found. If I could take a closer look, I could probably narrow it down to three to five breeds, and sometimes even down to one. The cycling can be deduced from the scratches on the outside of her leg. She gets them when she walks the bicycle around. There are newer marks over fainter ones, so it’s a regular occurrence.”

         “Could it not be caused by anything else?”

         “Maybe, but in this configuration and direction, cycling is the most likely explanation. You have to go on probability, and you’d be amazed by how predictable people can be. Although you must always allow for the unexpected.”

        “So she swims, she has dogs and she cycles, how is that useful to know?”

        “It’s probably not, not on its own, unless there is a detail in a case that’s directly related to one of these things, which will be very rare. But when you add all the little, insubstantial things together, you start getting a picture of the person, and that is when it starts getting interesting. You get patterns and potentialities. You eventually learn to tease out what is relevant and what isn’t.”

        Victor rubs his mouth.

        “Do you think I could learn to do it?”

        “Of course. It’s not a superpower, it’s training.”

        Victor purses his mouth in thought.

        “Do the waiter.”

        “Ah. Uniforms are interesting. They’re supposed to make people indistinguishable, but all they do is draw the differences into focus. For example, look at the hem of his trousers, compared to the hem of that other waiter there…”

        Victor listens with wide eyes and a fixed stare and asks a lot of questions. Sherlock has an insane amount of fun answering them.

 

*****

        Another day, they find a dead fox in the woods, half eaten by larvae and ants. Sherlock wants to take it inside the house. Victor doesn’t look horrified or shocked, just frowns in thought and says “the outhouse by the east wing hall has a long bench and a sink”, and helps him pick it up while Sherlock holds up an old blanket to carry it.

        “So light” says Victor.

        “Most of the juices are gone.”

        “Still stinky. Beugh, the weevils…”

        Sherlock smirks.

 

        He dissects the half dried beast. Victor perches on the worktop by his side, legs dangling, and watches, wrinkling his nose every now and then. Sherlock thinks it’s cute, which gets Mycroft’s voice in his head tormenting him relentlessly. But for once it slides right off him. _Yes, Mycroft, I find him bloody cute when he scrunches his nose, get over it._

        “Are you trying to work out the cause of death?” asks Victor, leaning over.

        “No, Victor, I’m not a pathologist. Or a veterinary. I’m just having a poke around.”

        “Wouldn’t it be better if it was, erm, fresher?” says Victor.

        “Not if what I’m interested in is the effects of exposure.”

         Victor points. “What is that?”

         “Fly eggs.”

         “Eew.”

         “Nobody is making you watch.”

         “No, it’s cool.”

         Sherlock looks up to Victor, to figure out if he is taking the piss.

         “What?” asks Victor. So, he isn’t.

         Sherlock smirks and gets back to it.

**  
  
**

* * *

 

        On the morning of the third Friday, they stumble upon Peter, the bloke who picked them up at the station when they first arrived.

        “Hey” says Peter, genially.

        “Hey” says Victor, less genial.

        “Have you heard? Andrew is throwing a party tonight.”

        “Yeah?” Victor doesn’t sound particularly interested.

        “Velvet Goldmine themed” adds Peter.

         Victor snorts. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he” he says.

        “What is Velvet Goldmine?” says Sherlock.

        “A movie about glam rock” explains Victor.

        “What is glam rock?”

        Victor smiles at him. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

        “I’m sure he’d love you to come” says Peter. “Both of you. He said he’d been trying to reach you but you weren’t picking up.”

        “No. Forgot to charge the phone for a couple of days now.” Sherlock knows that Victor is lying outright.

        “Well, why don’t you two come?” Peter reaches and flicks one of Victor’s curls. Victor jolts back, skittish. “You had something in your hair.”

        Victor looks away.

        “Thanks, but no. I don’t think Sherlock will…”

        “Yes, why not?” interrupts Sherlock.

        “What?”

        “Victor, honestly, check your hearing.”

        “Brilliant! I’ll tell Andrew. See you later. Nine-ish at his place. Oh, no admittance without eyeliner. And whatever else you want to add. You know the drill, Victor.” He winks and walks away towards his car.

        Victor is looking at Sherlock with wariness.

        “What are you up to, Sherlock?”

        “You like parties, don’t you?”

        “And you hate them.”

        “I’m trying to be a good boyfriend.”

        One of Victor’s eyebrows has shot up to the heavens. Sherlock stiffens up, a bit irked.

        “It’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it?”

        Victor keeps quiet and stares for a whole minute.

        He must come to some sort of determination in his head, because he ruffles his hair and seems to let it go at that.

       “Right. Ok… “ Ruffle, ruffle. “Well, we don’t have to stay long. They’re not exactly my crowd anymore.”

        “Good” says Sherlock, sincerely. A thought. “Why did you lie about your phone?”

        “I don’t feel like talking to them.”

        “I thought they were your friends.”

        “No, I don’t really have friends.”

        It’s Sherlock turn to stare in bafflement.

**  
***  
  


        The opportunity to prance around in fancy dress has Victor looking like the cat who got the cream. Sherlock detests the idea, pretty much until Victor emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a pair of shiny black leather trousers and leather boots.

         “You’re not going to wear a shirt?” says Sherlock, in stupor. Among other things. All he can see is nipples. And hip groove.

         “Nah. I’m going as Curt Wild.”

         “As what?”

         “As _who_. You really need to watch that movie.”

         “What have you done to your hair?”

         “Straightened it.”

         “You look hot.”

         Victor looks at him again as if he can’t believe his ears. It’s alright, because Sherlock can’t believe his mouth.

        “Thank you” stammers Victor, and he blinks a few times. “So why aren’t you dressed yet?” he points at the clothes he has picked for him, still laid on the bed.

        “I’m not wearing these.”

        “Oh, pleeeease...! You’ll look amazing!”

        “They’re too tight. I’ll look like a beanpole”

        “With those shoulders, that waist and that arse? You can rock it. With flying colours. Trust me. ...Pretty please?” Victor gives him the puppy eyes.

        Sherlock rolls his eyes and sighs. He puts on the tight black sleeveless vest and the tight black jeans, a good couple of inches too long for him. He hesitates at the metal-studded belt, but puts it on in the end just the same. The motorist boots are not his size either, but they’re not so far out that he can’t wear them. They’re so bloody heavy.

       “What’s the point of all these buckles?” grumbles Sherlock as he wrestles with the metal clasps.

        He studies his bony legs and skinny, white arms.

        “I look ridiculous.”

        “You and I have a totally different idea of what ‘ridiculous’ means” says Victor with heat in his eyes, and he pushes him towards the bathroom.

        Once they’re in, Victor gets a mystery metal tube out of the cabinet.

        “What are you doing now?” says Sherlock, while Victor spreads some product on his palms.

        “The hair. We’ll slick it back.”

        “Why?”

        “For the look.” He rubs the gooey thing into Sherlock’s still wet hair and combs it back. “Fucking hell, don’t fight me” he mumbles.

        “I’m not fighting you.”

        “Talking to the hair. To _this bloody curl_ here” he says under his breath, trying to wrestle the bloody curl (Sherlock knows which one he means) into submission.

        “Finished?” says Sherlock when Victor puts the comb down.

        “No. Hang on.” Victor fetches something from a drawer. “If we’re going for the full Transformer look…”

        “What are you talking about?”

        Victor ignores the question.

        “Sit down.” Victor pushes him down on the toilet seat and crouches in front of him. “Look at me.”

        “What now?” says Sherlock.

        “Eyeliner mandatory, remember?” and gets closer to his face.

        “When did you get this?” Sherlock tilts his head back.

        “I’ve always had it. I can’t reach…”

        “You wear makeup?” Sherlock’s head tilts even further back. Ouch, wall.

        “When I feel like it, yeah. Come here.”

         Sigh. “Do we have to?”

         “You’ll be more conspicuous if you don’t. Everybody else will.”

        “I don’t care.”

        “Oh, come on. For me. Close your eyes” begs Victor. Sherlock sighs and obeys. “Keep still… Now open… Ok.”

        “Done?”

        “No, not yet. The lips.”

        “You also paint your lips? ... _Black_?!”

        “Brilliant deduction.” The tip of Victor’s tongue appears between his teeth while he concentrates. “This mouth of yours, fucking hell. So much of it” mutters Victor as he strokes the lipstick bar on him. “Open.”

        Sherlock stares right into Victor’s eyes and slowly, very slowly, parts his lips.

        Victor briefly returns the stare and his mouth curves into a tiny wicked half-grin as he sweeps the lipstick on a few more times, carefully. When he’s finished, he lets his gaze drift over Sherlock’s face for a moment, still with the slightest hint of a smile. Sherlock stares back. _God, but he is beautiful_.

        “You’re done” announces Victor, standing up and replacing the lid on the stick.

        Sherlock gets up and rushes to the mirror. He looks at the alien, menacing, sexy creature in front of him. He feels like a different person. He turns to Victor, whose eyes are glazed with unabashed lust. Sherlock tilts his head, feline.

        “I’m so doing your nails black” warns Victor.

        “Absolutely not. ...Aren’t you going to put makeup on?” asks Sherlock, when he notices Victor’s face is still clean.

        “Not yet.” Victor moves closer. “God, look at you” he sighs, hooking a hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck, the other one around Sherlock’s waist. And he kisses him deeply, smearing black lipstick all over their gobs.

       “We’ll definitely be late now” whimpers Sherlock, while Victor’s hands are busy on his flies.

        “Oh dear, isn’t it a shame” murmurs Victor, undeterred, burying his face down in the crook of Sherlock’s neck, tracing its contours with his tongue and putting open-mouthed kisses there, while he slips his hands under the waistband of Sherlock’s pants.

        Sherlock runs his fingers along Victor’s soft, straightened hair, so strange. It’s his pants being dragged down now, his cock jutting free, quickly hardening as Victor plays with it.

        “Hand or mouth?” mutters Victor straight into his ear.

         Sherlock gulps.

        “Mouth” he says.

        Victor chuckles low, muttering something like “so shy”, and starts sliding down.

        Sherlock catches a glimpse of his own face in the mirror of the cabinet door, black paint smeared around his mouth, his eyes fierce, his iris even paler than usual, almost colourless. A wanton, hungry, decadent-looking extra-terrestrial. When Victor’s mouth closes around his cock, Sherlock arches his neck back, but he quickly rears it up to keep watching himself as Victor sucks him. It’s the strangest, hottest sight. It's like watching two strangers. When he puts one hand to Victor’s hair, in the mirror it doesn’t feel like his own.

*

**  
**

        You can tell which house they are going to just by following the muffled thumping of the music trickling through the walls. They buzz the doorbell and, after a long wait, they are greeted by a girl striving for a ‘Eurovision Agnetha’ look

        “Victor, _daaaarling_ , wow, look at you!” she squeals, kissing Victor on each cheek and threatening to do the same to Sherlock. (He recoils one full step just in case.)

        “Who’s your mate?” she says, checking Sherlock out.

        “Sherlock. He’s my boyfriend” says Victor, and his tone oozes pride.

        She looks surprised.

        “Boyfriend? Andrew will be disappointed. Especially after he _sees_ you.”

        Victor’s upper lip crooks up for a second, and if he was a dog he would have shown his teeth.

        Agnetha leads them to the basement. Inside, the human landscape is picturesque, to say the least. People have gone all out: there’s sequins, feathers, metallic jumpsuits, outrageous pimped-up sunglasses Elton John himself would frown upon, and hair dyes in every colour of the rainbow. By comparison, Sherlock and Victor look pretty discreet - bar the fact that Victor is shirtless, that is. Shirtless Victor, Sherlock knows, can be a bigger focus of attention than the craziest hairdo, and if any proof was required, they are now getting it, insistently, from every corner of the room -reactions ranging from lust to envious hostility, sometimes mixed together.

        After they’ve taken stock of the place, Victor turns to Sherlock and laughs, his childish dimples incongruous with his Iggy Pop rip-off personna.

        “Your face!” he giggles. “Come on, it can’t be that bad!”

        Sherlock squints for about a second, before a song starts, and Victor wails “Oooh god! I love this one!” and grabs him by the hand, dragging him to the very center of the room for a dance.

        Victor goes mad jumping and singing -or rather shouting- at the top of his lungs. But so is most everybody else. The song buzzes with sex, menace and electricity.

        Sherlock lets Victor do anything he wants with him. It’s like a switch has flicked in Sherlock’s brain, and the part of him that is always aware of his surroundings and the people in them has gone out for the day or just can’t be bothered. It’s intoxicating.

        “20th century booooy, I want to be your tooooooy!” screams Victor, arms in the air, along with everyone else. He looks wildly sexy tonight. Sherlock thrums with pride and lust.

        They only take a breather to get some drinks or when, every now and then, somebody comes to say hello, and Victor slows down to dole a kiss and call Sherlock’s name. Apart from that, they do nothing but dance, and make out in the slow ones, (romantic, sophisticated songs Sherlock finds himself paying quite a lot of attention to, even while Victor’s tongue does all sorts of things to his mouth, neck and ears) for more than an hour. Sherlock is a bit hammered on something sky blue and citrussy, and completely drunk on Victor.

        They go out for fresh air, a fag and a snog, strictly in that order. It’s full dark now. There’s three more couples in the front yard, kissing or just giggling and talking in low tones. The night is quiet and warm.

        Victor lights two cigarettes and passes one over to Sherlock.

        “Having a good time?” asks Victor.

        Sherlock takes a drag and nods.

        “I still can’t believe you actually insisted on coming.”

        Sherlock shrugs. “I’m unpredictable.”

        Victor chuckles. “You can say that again” and leans over for a snog.

        Victor’s tongue is idling just behind Sherlock’s lips, slow and lazy, and his hands are around his waist, under his vest.

        “God, you look so fucking hot tonight. I can’t fucking get rid of this hard-on. You’re driving me insane” whispers Victor into Sherlock’s ear, hands firmly cupping Sherlock’s arse, pulling him against his, indeed, bulging crotch. “Want to go to the car for a bit? Or upstairs?”

        Sherlock’s head is swimming in a sky blue citrussy sea that smells of hair product and posh soap and cigarette smoke and of Victor - _so much half-naked Victor_. With his eyes closed, he doesn’t realise he is falling until Victor catches him.

         “Whoa. You alright?”

         Sherlock nods.

         “Do you want to go home?” asks Victor, concerned.

        Sherlock shakes his head.

        “I just need some air. You go back inside. Car later.”

        “No, I’ll wait.”

        “It’s fine. Go. Be back in a minute.”

        Sherlock watches him go, his bare back and slim waist, his plump arse, his long legs in those stupid leather trousers, the way he walks.

        He takes his time out there, enjoying the relative peace and quiet -although the music still thumps from inside the house.

        There are no warnings and no premonitions. He has no idea about the storm gathering around them both.

*

 

        When Sherlock finally goes back inside, there’s a guy dancing awfully close to Victor, and trying to get even closer. Sherlock watches as events unfold from his perch on a long table covered in full ashtrays and empty glasses. (He’s hardly going to go over and intervene, like a jealous lover who can’t bear anyone near his ‘property’ -or allow the property a chance to deal with the situation itself.)

        Victor has a weak, diplomatic smile as he tries to get the bloke’s hands off him. They are like the heads of the hydra: as soon as Victor gets rid of one, three more seem to spring up. And now he’s saying something right into Victor’s ear, making him frown deeply, and he rounds it up by putting a hand on Victor’s crotch and kissing him full on the mouth. Victor shoves him off forcefully and glares at him, looking _murderous_. The guy raises his hands, palms out, conceding defeat, and moves away. He laughs it off with a couple of mates. Overall, it’s quite a repugnant scene.

        People have been watching. Victor looks surly and uncomfortable. He lights up a fag with stiff, clawlike hands, and goes to the corner where they give out the booze, to help himself to some liquid, artificial indifference.

        Sherlock relaxes again on his perch, but then a tall, good-looking thirty-something appears, dark hair streaked platinum blonde, dressed in black.

         “Sherlock” he says, voice a bit slurred. He’s drunk or high or both. “Like to watch?”

         If Sherlock had spikes they would be rising up now.

         “Have we met?” says Sherlock bluntly.

         “I’m Andrew. This is my party. So what is so special about you, then?” says Andrew, picking up a conversation they’ve never had.

         “Excuse me?”

         “I mean, what’s your secret?”

         ”What are you talking about?”

         “Talking about you and Victor.”

         Sherlock glares at him with hostility. “I don’t want to talk to you” he says, starting to walk away.

         Andrew grabs him by the crook of the elbow.

         “Yeah, I mean, sure, you’re kind of sexy, but still…”

         Victor turns up out of nowhere, frowning severely. He knows Sherlock doesn’t like people touching him.

         “Hey Andrew” he says, visibly making a point of keeping a civil tone. “Do you mind?”

         Andrew lets Sherlock go, making a grand gesture of it.

         “Jesus, I wasn’t doing anything…” he says. “Is he always like that with you, Sherlock?”

         Sherlock does not reply, and neither does Victor.

         “Because I know you haven’t got a lot of experience with being exclusive, Vic, but I have it on good authority that this is not how you do it” says Andrew, with a light tone that could still just about be classified on the humorous side of sarcastic.

        “Thank you, Andy, I’ll bear it in mind.” Victor takes Sherlock’s hand and makes to leave. He has managed to keep the snark off the rude scale but, judging by his face, he’s had to try hard.

        Andrew grabs Victor’s shoulder and spins him around towards him.

        “I was looking forwards to seeing you” he says, bordering on sleazy, as if Sherlock wasn’t there.

        “Lay off, Andy, you’re high” says Victor.

        “Damn right I am.” Two hands now, from Victor’s shoulders to Victor’s neck, tip-toeing to get closer to Victor’s face. If Victor wasn’t so tall, Andrew would be crowding him. “Does Sherlock like to watch?” he mutters. “Because he certainly didn’t rush to intervene before, with the little show you and Jeremy just put on.”

        Victor lets go of Sherlock’s hand to deal with Andrew, who has pumped up the sleaze several notches, hands clamped around Victor’s face, rubbing his thumbs under his jaw.

        “We also know how to put on a show, you and me, don’t we babe?” he mutters.

        Ah, thinks Sherlock, the bastard sounds _hopeful_.

        “Back off, Andy. It’s not going to happen.” Victor firmly removes Andrew’s paws off him and takes a step back.

        That turns the mood of the conversation entirely.

        “My, how things have changed” says Andrew, his tone now short and chilly.

        “Yes, they have” says Victor, ice cold.

        Andrew seems to ponder for a minute, possibly considering how to go about causing damage.

        “Has he told you about us, Sherlock?” he says at large. Sherlock narrows his eyes. “We go way back, don’t we, babe?”

        “I was sixteen” says Victor, with metal in his voice.

        Sherlock frowns.

        “And haven’t you grown. He used to be so skinny, Sherlock. And he used to be such a lot of fun.” Andrew slits his eyes, the emphasis on his words downright dirty.

        Sherlock stiffens up and shifts on his feet, ready to pounce. Not that he knows exactly what he would do, since there isn’t one among the ideas popping into his head that won’t land him in court (and possibly owing Mycroft a big favour.)

        Victor holds his wrist, stilling him.

        “And you used to be twenty-six” he swings back. He does appear quite composed and in control.

        “He has a thing for straight blokes as well, don’t you, Victor?” says Andrew, conversationally. “I suppose he likes a challenge. I mean, I’m mostly straight, but I’m pretty gay for you, beautiful. A lot of people are gay for Victor. What about you, Sherlock, are you gay or…?”

        Sherlock does cast another glance at Victor. He hopes the message ‘do you want me to rip his head off?’ is coming through as clear as he feels he is projecting it. Victor’s hold on his wrist tightens up. He throws him a look that says ‘I’ve got this.’ Sherlock does not agree, but he defers.

        “None of your business” he says, cutting.

        Andrew laughs nastily. His eyes keep darting towards Victor’s hand on Sherlock, now tracing circles with one fingertip on the inside of Sherlock’s wrist.

        “Hey, I just meant to welcome you into the club” says Andrew, all _chummy_. “With Jeremy there. And... Peter you know, of course, and that one over there, with the blonde with the big tits? That’s Tim. And who else, let’s see…”

        “Andy…” says Victor, his discomfort finally starting to escalate, his grab on Sherlock’s wrist clenching involuntarily.

        “Yes, our man here has quite a record” Andrew keeps on relentlessly. “Oh come on, babe, it’s a compliment! We’re sort of considering forming a support group, ha ha. You see, Sherlock, the man has ruined me for blow-jobs forever more, unless I can get me a porn actress or something. Well, I guess I don’t need to tell you, do I? God, I’d fucking pay you for it, babe.”

        Sherlock tugs at Victor’s hand on his wrist. Victor digs his nails in.

        “Funny how you always bring up the blow-jobs and forget to mention all the times I’ve fucked you cross-eyed” hisses Victor.

         An unpleasant smile from Andrew, following a twitch of something very, very ugly in his eye.

        “I’ll tell you what I’ll never forget” he says in retaliation, his tone ominous. “I’ll never forget those nights with Jezza, Pete, Tim, you and me, and how sweet you were to us _all_.”

        Victor freezes, his glare toxic. It takes Sherlock a moment to understand what exactly Andrew is implying, but he doesn’t need spelling out that this is something you don’t say to Victor’s face. He looks hurt, _broken_ hurt, and betrayed, just before he straightens up to his full height, chin up, with deep, utter contempt in his eyes.

        “Get the fuck out of my face” he seethes.

        Andrew takes a step back, still with that dirty, self-satisfied grin, but something else too. Oh, he has gone too far, and he knows it.

        “Anyway, sweetcheeks” he says, as if nothing had happened. “Give me a call when you get bored. Sorry, Sherlock. Sooner or later, he always does.”

         Victor’s chest is heaving as if he was about to cry with anger.

 

        “Are you alright?” Sherlock says after a while.

        “I want to go home.” snaps Victor.

* * *

        Victor pronounces himself too wired up to go to bed. It’s early anyway. They put some more clothes on and go out to the rooftop and sit on the ledge looking out, drinking a beer and smoking way too much. Victor is quiet for a very long time, his eyes lost somewhere in the distance, beyond the woods.

        “I don’t give a toss about anything he has said. You know that, don’t you?” says Sherlock at some point, when he realises that letting Victor take the lead won’t be getting them anywhere in a hurry.

        Victor says nothing and just keeps right on smoking, and slowly stewing in a bath of acid, judging by his expression.

        “I really don’t” Sherlock insists.

        “You say that now. You said the same about Mycroft.”

         Hm. Ouch.

         “…It’s completely different” says Sherlock.

         “How is it different?” Victor’s voice is barely a breath.

        “They are not Mycroft. They’re… they’re nothing.” Sherlock weighs his words now. This is important. “I don’t care that you… have had a lot of experience. It doesn’t change my perception of you at all. I knew you had been around from the first time I saw you, and you’ve always been open about it. And I liked that about you anyway. I still do. It’s not shameful to me, none of it is.”

        Victor takes a long drag.

        “The virgin and the slut.” he huffs. “They’ll be writing fucking songs about us.” His tone could curdle milk.

        His mood is obviously far from soothed by Sherlock’s words. He is clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth. It’s disturbing.

        “They think I’m their bitch, their fucktoy” groans Victor bitterly after a while. “They think they can fucking pass me around like a fucking porn tape.”

        Sherlock looks downwards. The tone of Victor’s voice cuts him like a knife.

        “They’re wrong” says Sherlock, which is an obviousness that, for once, is not superfluous to state.

         Victor is smoking way too fast. He stubs one out and lights another.

        “You know what Jeremy was telling me? That he had _talked about me to his friends_ and they wanted to have a taste. A _taste_. And he fucking offered me coke for it. Not in so many words, but he didn’t have to. He thinks I’m a whore. His whore.” He spits into the night. “And yes, back in the day, that is why I started hanging out with him, because he got me drugs. And then we’d get high together and I let him fuck me.” Victor rubs a hand to his eyes. “And I’m the fucking idiot, because I thought we were just having fun together. That we had had a… a fucking fling, whatever you want to call it. Well, apparently, it was a fucking business transaction. What a fucking imbecile I am. I should have fucking charged him more.”

        Sherlock swallows. This is getting very ugly very quickly.

        “And the thing Andrew said? Since we’re letting it all out in the open, I might as well tell you about that too.” says Victor, his tone laced with bitter sarcasm. “Don’t be getting any romantic notions, alright? It wasn’t an orgy. It was a gang bang.” And in a smaller voice: “Three gang bangs.”

        Sherlock doesn’t move one muscle.

        “And I didn’t do it for the joy and the pleasure of it, ok?” Victor continues, although he is struggling. “I was very high and very fucked up.”

        “Did they rape you?” says Sherlock, trying to sound even.

        “Do you think I would see them again if they had?”

        Sherlock shrugs. What does he know about why people do or not do things. When has he ever.

        “No. I knew perfectly well what was going on, and I let it happen. And it didn’t do me any good. And then I went and did it again, and again. My… my therapist said it was a type of self-harm. It was not about being wanted. It was about being… used.” A long drag. Victor’s hands are shaking.

        “When I met Mycroft” he says then, seemingly out of nowhere, “I thought he would be different. He was clever and sophisticated and a gentleman. And kind of sweet. I thought he’d see something worthwhile in me.” Throws the fag away, and it bounces off the wall with a small shower of sparkles. “But he obviously agrees that I’m worth fuck all apart from…” His voice breaks into a dry sob. “Just after Mycroft. That’s when it happened.”

        Sherlock frowns. He doesn’t talk. What can he say? ‘Don’t be silly, of course you’re not worthless, and fucking in any configuration doesn’t change that’? How is that going to help?

       Victor scrubs his face with both hands.

       “And Andy knows it’s not a good memory for me. He knows how much it screwed up with my head back in the day. I thought he had… Well, maybe not forgotten about it but… that he was letting _me_ forget about it. But this shit doesn’t just go away, does it?” A sour chuckle. “I thought he was my fucking _mate_. But apparently, that was only as long as I...” A heavy exhale.

       Sherlock nods once, still at a loss about what to say, or not say.

        “I’m nobody’s bitch.” declares Victor, smoke escaping his mouth as if he was a fuming dragon. “And I’m not easy. I do what I want. Just because I wasn’t in a very good place some time ago and I did some things I’m not proud of doesn’t mean…” he chokes. “Fuck.”

        “I know” says Sherlock.

        Victor takes a drag that burns half an inch of ash. Sherlock really wants to say that none of those things from Victor’s past matters to him at all, that those bastards are not worth the dust on the sole of Victor’s shoes. Because they aren’t. Because _nobody in the whole fucking world is_.

        “Victor…”

        “And if I’ve never had a proper boyfriend,” says Victor over him “or been exclusive with anyone, it’s because I’ve never been interested before. Until now. You know that, right?” His tone turns softer now, pleading. “And I’m not going to get bored, and I’m not going to cheat on you. I don’t want anybody else. I mean that. Ok?”

        “Ok.”

        “Do you believe me?

         Sherlock doesn’t answer quickly enough.

        Victor’s nostrils flare, his upper lip curls ready to growl, and he gets up to go, huffing with rage. Sherlock catches his arm.

        “Victor, I didn’t mean it like that” he says, standing up as well.

        “How the fuck did you mean it then?” says Victor in a poisonous whisper, his hands tightly clenched into fists on either side of his body.

        “I mean… “ Sherlock frantically scrounges for the right words, the ones that won’t make it worse. “Life is long and, and, how can just one person be enough? How could I be enough?”

        “Don’t give me the self-pitying babble, Sherlock, I’m not in the mood.”

         “That’s not what I…” Sherlock huffs, getting frustrated. “It’s not self-pity. All I’m saying is…Things happen, and it’s not the end of the world and, and, and I would understand it if… fuck, I don’t know how to say this.”

        “What you’re saying is” Victor steps in ‘it’s alright if you’re a slut and you can’t fucking keep it in your pants Victor because I’m a doormat anyway so not to worry’, right?”

        “No, Victor, that’s not…”

        “Sherlock, darling, if what you’re trying to say is that you can cope with an open relationship, I’m going to have to sit down and laugh for a few hours.”

        Sherlock gapes like a fish out of water, grappling for something to say that will blunt the edge of the hurt and the anger in Victor’s voice.

        “I have fucked around enough” says Victor, defiant. “I’m with you now.”

        “I don’t need you to make this kind of promise.”

        Wrong thing to say. Very wrong. A surge of fury flares through Victor’s whole body.

        “I just fucking did.” he seethes.

        “Yes, but…”

        “Oh, fuck you, Sherlock!” he roars. “Fuck you and fuck this!” Victor stomps away, slamming the door behind him so hard the bang might ring in Sherlock’s ears for hours.

 

***  
  
**

        It’s long past midnight when Sherlock finally dares to go back into the tower room. He hears the village’s church bell chime the hour, lonely in the otherwise quiet night.

        Victor is awake in bed, and, judging by his breathing pattern, has been crying. Quite a lot, and until quite recently.

        Sherlock sits at the foot of the bed and takes the stupid boots off. He struggles out of his tight jeans and gets rid of the vest. In just his pants, he slithers up to Victor’s side, and plants a kiss on his shoulder, half expecting to be swatted away, and ready to take it.

        Victor doesn’t even move a finger, not for a good while.

        Finally, he lifts an arm and, without turning, he hooks a hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck, and rubs fondly once. Sherlock buries his face between Victor’s shoulderblades and wraps an arm around him, big spoon for once.

        Every now and then, Victor sniffs.

        

* * *

 

**  
**

        God knows why, they go to the beach the next morning. Victor says something about the walls crushing him in, and it’s the only thing Sherlock can come up with. Victor looks so tired and unhappy, almost ill.

        They spot the big blond surfer hunk and the girls again, goofing around with a volley ball this time. Victor makes a point of ignoring them.

        “Are you coming in?” he says, curtly.

        “No” says Sherlock, way too fast.

        “Suit yourself.”

        Victor spends a long time in the water, most of it floating on his back, and sometimes on his front, which is disquieting. Sherlock observes from under the shelter of the parasol, caught between the urge to go and be with him or give him space to sort himself out. He simply does not know what to do for the best, or what Victor needs from him. He feels so bleeding useless. He gets to a point in which he reaches for his mobile phone and almost calls Mycroft for advice, until he realises he hasn’t got a clue where to start explaining his problem. Not that Mycroft would want to help make things right between Victor and him. Fuck.

        Sherlock is still observing when Victor comes out of the water, taking vigorous strides with his long, long legs to counter the pull of the breaking waves. And Sherlock is observing as well when one of the blonde girls playing ball hops towards Victor, swaying her hips, and strikes up a conversation Sherlock can’t hear. She plays with her ponytail and the ties of her bikini while she smiles, and throws her head back, exposing her throat, to giggle at whatever it is Victor is saying. It really doesn’t take much else besides the reptilian brain to understand what is going on there.

        Victor has a smile that’s pleasant enough, and the shadow doesn’t hang so heavy on his eyes while he is talking with her, which is intriguing. At some point, though, after she puts a hand on his forearm and seems she is never going to take it off, Victor holds her hand between his and tells her something with a commiserating smile. And here it comes, her disappointed “oh, what a shame” expression.

        And that should be it, really, but disappointment lifts off her face surprisingly quickly, replaced by… what is that? She stands on her tip-toes to say something into his ear, and they both turn to look at… the big blond surfer hunk.

        Oh.

        _Oh_.

        Victor is saying something but she is clearly not listening. She is the one clasping his hands firmly now and dragging him over to the group of her sisters and brother - their parentage clearly discernible in their features and constitution. There’s introductions and kisses on the cheek with the other three girls, and a virile handshake with the blond hunk, who is _taller than Victor_ (impossible to miss it now that they’re standing face to face) and about twice as wide. And indeed, Sherlock senses the pheromones from where he is sitting.

        _Oh_.

        Sherlock inquires into his feelings at this point, and finds relief among them. How curious. In a guilt-inducing kind of way.

        Some words are exchanged, and now it’s Mr. Hunk’s turn to look disappointed, in a very smiley, surf-boy-cool kind of way. They shake hands again and Victor starts walking back, laughing at something Mr. Hunk has shouted to his back, which Sherlock has not caught.

        Victor walks over and flops on the towel next to him. He puts the sunglasses on and lies down, looking blank.

        “Why didn’t you stay with them?” says Sherlock.

        “Because I’m with you.”

        “They seem fun” (Not to Sherlock, but still.)

        Victor lifts his sunglasses to look at him in the eye, not too kindly.

         “But I am with you.”

        The bristly silence between them stretches.

         “I’m going for a walk” says Sherlock.

         He manages to take a good five steps before Victor calls after him.

         “Wait” he says, and catches up with him. He still looks quite somber. He smothers every uncovered bit of him with cream and forces a cap on his head. “And don’t you dare take it off. Your skin is like a bloody night orchid” he says, his tone now softer.

         Sherlock smiles a little bit and returns the kiss when Victor kisses him. Their eyes meet for a second. Victor manages a little smile as well, before he brushes a hand to Sherlock’s face and goes back to his spot on the sand.

 

         Sherlock tries to remember the last time he saw Victor really laugh.

*

        The seaside promenade is busy and crowded, so he keeps to the reedy parts of the dunes, where nobody wants to lay a towel. Walking there is harder and more tiresome, but it suits Sherlock just fine. The sky is dirty white and the sea is tinged with strokes of metallic gray.

        The thought he has been trying to stave off pronounces itself: It would be easier if Victor just went and fell in love with that blond giant. It would save Sherlock a lot of bother.

        Yes, of course it would hurt like hell, but his pain he can deal with -or not, according to Mycroft, but that would be his problem. It’s the thought of hurting Victor, however, that has him cowering in a corner.

        What does all this make me, Mycroft. _(It makes you human, Sherlock.)_

        And there, in a nutshell, is yet another reason why Sherlock would rather not be human at all.

 *

 

        Coming back, from a distance, he sees several people sitting around Victor. He really doesn’t need to get any closer to know who they are.

        The girls have a couple of bottles of water they’re passing around, and they’re laughing and chatting. And Mr. Surfer Hunk is lying on his side on the sand. Sherlock is convinced that, if he looks, he’ll find Michelangelo's signature somewhere. He turns to look at Sherlock with curiosity, _(he is handsome, goddammit!_ ) not without kindness in his eyes. But if Sherlock struggles enough to recognise kindness on any given day, right now, deep in his blacker mood, he wouldn’t see it if it slapped a wet fish across his face. So he returns a stare that’s plainly hostile, which probably will make the hunk think he is jealous. Which he isn’t. Right?

         “I’m hot, I want to go” announces Sherlock, brusquely. _(And where did that come from, brother dear?)_

         “Of course” says Victor, getting up.

         The girls pout.

         “Aww shame, are you sure? We were talking about going to get some ice creams” says the one.

         Sherlock gives her another of his glares, which she probably does not deserve.

         The hunk remains silent, just towering about, simply looking massive and exuding sunshine and gold.

         When they all realise that Sherlock is adamant about going home, and that there’s nothing to be done about it, they get up, dusting off the sand, and there’s kisses and exceedingly familiar arm-stroking from the girls to Victor, as if they had known him all their lives, and a friendly, manly, firm handshake from the hunk. Sherlock stays to one side, not even attempting to be sociable.

        As they walk away, back to their towels and things, the hunk calls:

        “Give me a call anytime, man.”  He has a husky, deep voice.

        “Down, boy” throws Victor over his shoulder as he folds his towel, not even turning to look -the king of cool.

         The hunk smiles a dazzling golden smile and, shaking his head, he walks away, probably well aware that he has no weak angles. And Sherlock sees that Victor does, indeed, steal a glimpse at the hunk’s B side.

 

        As they walk back to the car, Victor gets his phone out and presses some keys.

        “See? Deleted” he shows him the screen.

        “... Why did you get his number in the first place?”

        “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

        Sherlock tastes metal in his mouth. _(Do make up your mind, brother dear.)_ Before he knows it, he is spurting it out, even though he can feel he really, really should keep it inside:

        “His accent is local and the kind of gear they carried also indicates they’re not far from home. You’ll have no trouble finding him again.”

        Victor stops dead in his tracks. He glares at him with pure, burning anger. He walks all the way to the car, without looking at him, and without another word. The drive back is quiet and tense.

        When they get home, Victor still hasn’t uttered a sound. He rushes to the shower without a glance back, and when he’s done, he picks up the bike keys and goes.

 

*

 

        Hours later, he finds Victor by the lake, on the pier, dipping his toes in the quiet, glass-green water.

        “I’m sorry” says Sherlock.

        Victor doesn’t sigh, or huff, or none of the little giveaways Sherlock has learned to latch onto when having an emotionally charged conversation -they are slightly easier to decipher than words, and they lie much less.

        “What are you sorry about” says Victor at last, with a very little, toneless voice.

        “Whatever it is I...”

        “No.” He cuts, severely. “That will not do. _What_ are you sorry about” he repeats, with a stern inflection in his voice.

        Sherlock really, really thinks about that. He takes his time. He summons Mycroft in his head for guidance.

        “... I’m sorry for implying that you intend to go with that boy from the beach behind my back and that you only were making a show of deleting his number in front of me to set my mind at ease” he says finally, without a pause, and very little intonation.

        Victor takes a deep, shuddering breath.

        “Thank you. I forgive you.”

        Doesn’t look it.

         Sherlock leaves then, because nothing good seems to be expected from his continued presence there.

         Victor stays, his eyes quite dead, slumped as if he was carrying a heavy burden on his back.

**  
**

* * *

 

        Victor doesn’t turn up for dinner, so Sherlock doesn’t bother eating either. He climbs to the rooftop with the violin, and plays and plays and plays. He hadn’t picked it up for weeks. He hadn’t needed to.

        Almost an hour later, Victor appears from behind a dormer window, where he apparently had been sitting all along.

        “That was beautiful” he says, his tone still subdued, oddly kind, as if he has nothing left to give. “I don’t think I know it. What was it?”

         Sherlock studies the instrument in his hand. Dare he? Should he?

         “…I wrote it for you” he says in the end.

         Victor smiles the saddest smile Sherlock has ever seen.

         “God. Sherlock.” he says, his voice even thinner. “I’m overwhelmed.” But he sounds barely a breath above desolate.

         He seems to deliberate for a minute. Then he closes the distance between them and cups Sherlock’s jaw with both hands, his face undone from crying.

         “… Sherlock, I need you to try” he says, softly.

         “Try what.”

         “Try, for both of us, for this…” He struggles to find the words, and to keep his voice from breaking. “I can’t do it for you. I wish I could. But you need to believe in this or…”

         “I don’t know how.”

         That seems to drive a spear through Victor’s side and he flinches, and can’t contain a sob. He takes a second to pull himself back together.

         “… Just stop pushing me away. That’s all you have to do” he says then.

         Sherlock doesn’t look and doesn’t speak. Victor sucks in a breath.

         “Please” he says. He sounds so broken, so forlorn. “I love you. I need you.”

         “You don’t _need_ me” snaps Sherlock.

         “How do you fucking know that?!” barks Victor and walks back, as if staying close was not safe. “Why would you fucking think you can tell my feelings better than I can?”

         He takes a deep breath, and gathers himself, though he still sounds whiny.

         “I want to be with you and look after you and try to make you happy, that’s all I fucking want. But you keep pushing and pushing. Why?”

         Sherlock swallows thickly. There’s no escaping this now.

         “Victor, you shouldn’t be with me” he says at last.

         Victor frowns, clenches his jaw. He looks about to break.

         “… So who should I be with then? Mycroft? _Andrew_?” Oh, the hatred in his voice.

         “…Somebody who deserves you.”

         Victor snorts, scathing.

         “… Don’t give me that, please. That’s the cheapest excuse in the fucking book.” He huffs, exasperated, panicky. “Do you want me, Sherlock? Do you love me?” His voice is weak.

         Sherlock can’t barely look at him, let alone speak.

         “Answer me” demands Victor. “No, _look at me_ and answer me.”

         Sherlock sighs. It burns his throat.

        “You know I do.”

        “Yes, I do. I know you do.” A small sigh of relief. “And do I look after you?”

        “… Yes.”

        “So” now with a much softer tone “I know you’re not great at being happy and all that. But… I make you happy, right?”

        “… Sometimes.”

        Victor tears up, but apparently he can work with that.

        “Then just stop pushing me away. Let me… let me fucking love you, Sherlock. I’m good for you.”

        “I’m not good for you.”

        “That’s not true.”

        “I make you miserable.”

        “That’s even less true.”

        “I’m obnoxious and horrible and unpleasant and I hate everything. I don’t know how to love you back.” There, he said it. It’s out.

        “No, you’re wrong.” Victor’s voice is shuddering, but it will pick up strength as he speaks. “You’re difficult, and you’re snarky and definitely a bit of a twat, but when did I ever care about that? You’re also strange and passionate and wonderful, and I never know what you’re going to do or say next. Everything interests you, nobody sees things the way you do, you have something to teach me about everything. You light up so easily and then you burn like a fucking star. You’re charming as fuck when you feel like it and nobody has ever made me laugh like you do. You’re a sweet puddle of goo when I hug you, it melts my heart. Sex with you blows my mind, I never know how you’re going to be. Sometimes you’re in a different planet and it’s like making love to a, I don’t know, to an angel, so beautiful and remote and impossible to reach. Other times it’s like you open up and go completely wild and then, fuck, Sherlock… What I feel with you I’ve never felt before. Sherlock… there is nobody in this world like you, and the fact that you’ve let me in, when you had never let anyone near before, is… god, I feel like… Sherlock...”

        He hugs him tight, one hand firmly anchored on Sherlock’s hair.

       “You deserve the fucking world, Sherlock” he whispers. “And I love you, I love you so much. Please, don’t push me away, please…”

       Sherlock breaks down crying and only then does he hug back. Victor cradles him and shushes him. All Sherlock can do is cling on for dear life. _He will fucking miss this so very, very much._ He finds Victor’s mouth and kisses him as if this is his last night on earth. He tastes Victor’s tears and wants them gone, he wants his own tears gone. While avoiding looking at his face, he frantically works to get Victor’s clothes out of the way, lifting the shirt and undoing his flies and pulling the jeans halfway down his arse. Victor is very still and does not resist him. Then Sherlock rushes with his own clothes, the bare minimum, turns his back on Victor and, with his eyes firmly shut, pushes his bare arse against Victor’s cock, hands flat on the ledge of the roof, the whole of fucking Norfolk at their feet.

      That sound Victor just made was a sob.

      Please, thinks Sherlock, incapable of speaking.

      Victor’s hand strokes down from his neck to his hip. There is some rustling and some wet noises behind his back, and now he feels Victor’s cock ever so slowly pushing into him. Sherlock gasps and wills himself to relax. Victor fills him up little by little and starts moving almost as soon as he is in. Entwining his fingers with Sherlock’s, he fucks him gently, his mouth at the nape of his neck, his breathing silent there, burning him.

*****

 

       “Which is that one?”

       “Cassiopeia, Victor. You’ve just asked. Pay attention.”

       Victor chuckles dozily.

       “And that little cluster there?”

       “Delphinus.”

       “And those?”

       “The Corona Borealis. Victor, you’re not even looking.”

        He isn’t. He is looking at Sherlock, face droopy because most of the night is gone, eyes puffy and rimmed in red.

        He hasn’t cried in a while, but his breathing is still shaky. He puffs a long, shuddering sigh and nuzzles into Sherlock’s neck.

        “Let’s go to bed” says Sherlock for the umpteenth time.

        “No” says Victor, umpteenth plus one.

         Sherlock sighs. Victor gives the hand he is holding on his lap between his a strong squeeze.

        “We might as well just wait until sunrise” he says.

        “What’s so special about the sunrise here then” says Sherlock.

         “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”

        Sherlock shifts his shoulder to better accommodate Victor’s head. Victor’s breathing still breaks into sobs after he falls asleep, long before dawn.

 ****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how much I've needed my beta this time, and how much this thing has improved because of her. So go drop Cloisteredself some love! All remaining blunders are my own.
> 
> oh, and
> 
>  
> 
> 1\. I got the ideas for some of the deductions from "The science of deduction" (on Tumblr.) 
> 
> 2\. Velvet Goldmine is a movie by Todd Haynes about a fictional character based on David Bowie (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers looking like a god). It deals with his complicated relationship with his alter ego Maxwell Demon (read Ziggy Stardust) and his no less complicated relationships with his wife Mandy (Toni Colette) and his lover Curt Wild, based on a mash up of Lou Reed and Iggy Pop (played by Ewan McGregor, also looking like a friggin' god.) It's wonderful, clever, sophisticated, nostalgic and sexy. Go watch it. Thank me later. (If you've seen it, you might notice the little homage in the rooftop scene, preferably to be read while "Tumbling down" is playing.)  
> Also see: Glam Rock, men in makeup, flashy jumpsuits, feathers and theatricals.
> 
> 3\. 'Transformer' is a record by Lou Reed, produced by David Bowie. He toured it with a very distinct look that I would very much like to see Sherlock in. Google it.
> 
> 4\. I don't really need to say who Agnetha is, right? ...Oh well. Member of Abba, Swedish pop group that won Eurovision. Google it up for the look, I really am lost for words to describe it.
> 
> 5\. The song Victor is singing is in the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack. It's Roxy Music's "20th Century Boy", in a roaring cover by Placebo in the movie.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock makes a decision and everyone suffers, Mycroft has to deal with self-fulfilling prophecies, and Victor doesn't get to have a say.
> 
> Warnings for off-screen drug use (not detailed.)
> 
>  
> 
> “Will you be alright?” he asks softly.
> 
> Sherlock feels the knot in his throat tightening to a strangle hold.
> 
> Of all the things he expected to hear from Victor at this point in the game, this wasn’t one of them. He knows he can’t possibly answer Victor’s question honestly and not make everything vastly worse. Of course I won’t is the answer.
> 
> “Will you?” he says instead.'

 

 

        Early next morning, Sherlock is standing by his closed, fully packed bag. Victor is standing in front of him, with a towel slung low over his hips, fresh from the shower. Sherlock keeps his eyes fixed somewhere on Victor’s shoulder.

        “I’m going home” says Sherlock -redundantly, because it’s obvious.

        Victor winces and frowns and that’s about it for facial expressions. He is not saying anything. Not a lot to go on for Sherlock. Not that he has the first clue of what he wants or doesn’t want to hear.

        The silence stretches.

 

         “I’ll drive you” says Victor at last.

 

        In a couple of minutes, Victor is dressed and grabbing his keys, his hair still dripping wet, soaking the neck of his t-shirt, and pretty much acting as if Sherlock wasn’t there. Sherlock follows him, with a burning lump in his throat he had not anticipated when he was visualising this scene in his mind for planning purposes.

 

        For a long time, not a word is heard in the car.

        Victor does talk, eventually.

        “Can I ask for something” he says, eyes fixed on the road.

        Sherlock turns his head towards him as an answer.

        “Don’t go to Mycroft’s” says Victor.

        Sherlock swallows.

        “What do you mean” he says, with a decent attempt at a firm voice.

        “I mean go anywhere else, anywhere in the world. Take an apartment, or a hotel room, or go on a trip to wherever you want. I’ll pay for it, no questions asked, no strings attached. Just don’t stay at Mycroft’s.”

        “… Why.”

        “Because I won’t have a chance in hell after he’s through with you.”

        “A chance?”

        “To change your mind.”

        Oh.

        Sherlock swallows again.

        “Victor, this has nothing to do with Mycroft.”

        “No?” His tone is challenging.

        “It’s about me.”

        Victor snorts.

        “ _It’s not you, it’s me_ ” he sing-songs. A bitter huff. “For a person who has never had any experience with relationships before in your life, you have learned quickly how to break up”

        Sherlock winces. That was mean. He doesn’t reply and he doesn’t protest though. There is no point.

        “Please, don’t go to Mycroft’s” insists Victor, pleading this time.

        Sherlock sighs.

        “It’s not going to make any difference at all, Victor” he says, his tone heavy with gloom and inevitability.

        A long silence.

        “You’re going there no matter what I say, aren’t you” groans Victor. “You’ve made up your mind and that’s it. That’s all.”

        Sherlock doesn’t answer. He just looks down to his hands, resting on the violin case.

        Victor takes a shuddering breath.

        “When did you stop caring like that?”

        “Caring?”

        “About me, about us?” Deep breath. “When the fuck did that happen? Because yesterday I thought-…” his voice breaks.

        This is hard. Sherlock wishes so badly they didn’t have to talk at all.

        “I care for you very much” he says, struggling to find the words. He swallows thickly, tries with everything he has to get it out. “I just can’t do this anymore.” _It’s killing me_ , he doesn’t add.

        Victor shakes his head in frustration and wipes furiously a tear that was trickling down his face.

        He doesn’t make a sound for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness for that.

 

         At the station, the awkwardness only gets worse. Victor looks so sad, hopeless, so bitter. Sherlock doesn’t know what to say and doesn’t know what to do. What does one do in this situation. What does one feel. For the record, he has decided that he is feeling relieved, because he’s made the decision, and it’s all out, and Victor knows, and that’s it. It’s an odd type of relief that’s laced with an urge to curl into a ball and cry his eyes out, but right now these are just details.

        Victor stands there, shoulders slumped, looking small, in patent need of comfort -patent even to Sherlock. It feels so strange to not be allowed to touch him anymore, when until just a few hours ago he had taken it for granted. An iron claw grips his stomach as he realises that he has not touched him enough, that he should have hugged him more. He bats it away as pointless, soppy sentiment. Well, just one more thing to beat himself over about when he’s home. But who is counting.

 

       Victor clears his throat. Finally, finally, he looks at him.

       “Will you be alright?” he asks softly.

        Sherlock feels the knot in his throat tightening to a strangle hold.

        Of all the things he expected to hear from Victor at this point in the game, this wasn’t one of them. He knows he can’t possibly answer Victor’s question honestly and not make everything vastly worse. _Of course I won’t_ is the answer.

       “Will you?” he says instead.

        Victor’s eyes fill with tears, but tries to swallow it in.

        “Bye, Sherlock” he says, his voice weak. He walks away in long strides, graceful even in dejection.

         Sherlock turns immediately and makes for the platform. He doesn’t look back once.

 

         As the landscape rushes by, he wonders what Victor will think when he finds the Wallace box, that Sherlock has made a point of leaving behind, tucked up in his drawer. Somehow he believes that Victor will misunderstand his intentions, yet again, and that he’ll be hurt.

        There is nothing to be done about it. He simply could not bring himself to take it.

        Of all the shitty things he feels he has done to Victor, surely leaving the box behind can’t be the worst. So why does it feel exactly like that.

 

*

 

         The flat is empty, immaculate, and so Mycroftian in the little brass knick-knacks, worn leather and dark woods that it would be laughable, if Sherlock felt in any way like laughing.

        Mycroft won’t be here until late in the evening, as is his habit. He will find all his stuff in the little guest room that only Sherlock ever uses, but won’t find him, and he’ll know, but by then it will be too late.

 

*

 

        Three days later, somebody who owes Mycroft a favour phones him with the news that they have found his brother, alive, in a poor but non-life-threatening condition, in an unoccupied, half ruined building in current use as a drugs den. Mycroft will dash to the hospital to find Sherlock recovering from a drug rampage that has probably killed a fifth of his brain cells.

 

        Back at the flat, to get Sherlock some clean clothes to take him home, Mycroft picks up the phone -which Sherlock wisely left in the flat before going to get himself in the condition they have found him-, and checks again the -is it forty now?- unanswered messages from Victor. Victor doesn’t offer specifics, he just asks Sherlock to phone or text, and then there are several pledges of sentiment and, increasingly, expressions of hurt, anger and worry in varying proportions. 

       Well, Mycroft could hazard a guess but really, in such a delicate situation, nothing but hard facts will do. So he phones.

       Not half a tone rings before Victor picks up.

       “ _Sherlock!_ ” he can almost hear Victor’s heartbeat through the receiver.

       “I’m afraid not” he says, and lets it sink.

       “ _Mycroft?_ ”

       “What happened?” asks Mycroft, soberly, and a tad enigmatically perhaps (he will be the first to admit that dramatics run in the family.)

       “ _Where is Sherlock? Why have you got his phone?_ ” Victor is now positively frantic.

       “He is not available” says Mycroft. The truth at this moment won’t do any good, he decides. “What happened?”

       “ _Not available? What the fuck does that mean?_ ”

       “What happened in Norfolk.”

       A silence.

       “ _Where’s Sherlock?_ ”

       Mycroft waits. And waits.

       “ _He dumped me_ ” says Victor, his tone more angry than upset, at least on the surface -but Mycroft is hardly a surface man.

       Mycroft purses his lips.

       “Indeed.”

        _“Yes, dear, you got what you wanted”_

        Oh.

        A pregnant silence.

        “… Thank you, Victor.”

        “ _Wait! Don’t…_ ”

 

        Mycroft turns off the phone and reclines in the well-worn club armchair with his drink. He needs to be dashing out again as soon as he possibly can. As soon as he possibly can, meaning not yet.

        He wonders if Victor has someone he can talk to right now. He thinks not. The thought disturbs him deeply, and that he would not have guessed.

 

*

 

        Mycroft knows who it is when he hears the door. Who else could it be. Nobody else knows.

        Victor looks thinner, paler, his eyes deep in the darkened orbits, unshaven, clothes wrinkled and unkempt. The very picture of grief.

        “Is he here?” he says, curtly.

         Mycroft moves to one side and lets him in.  

         “In the guests room” says Mycroft to Victor’s back.

        Victor knows the flat, of course. Ah, the bloody memories.

 

________

 

        “Sherlock!” gasps Victor, eyes wide in shock.

        The picture he is faced with must be indeed a sight to behold. Sherlock hasn’t left the room since they let him out of the hospital. Neither has he eaten, he has barely ingested any liquids and he hasn’t washed. What he has done is heroin. Mycroft made his stern point about it, but he knows he can’t push it or Sherlock will just leave, and apparently Mummy does prefer that his junkie son has a safe shelter for his habit. Or that’s what Mycroft says. Sherlock, for his part, is quite sure none of this has reached their parents’ ears. It would be rather a bore if it did, but at the moment, Sherlock isn’t really bothered one way or the other, or indeed, about very much at all. That’s chemistry for you.

        “What” he says to Victor, stiffly bringing himself up to sitting in the bed, hoarse and short, in a very bad mood because he is not _dressed to receive_.

        “What the fuck have you done?” says Victor with a strangled voice, still too shocked to speak properly.

        Sherlock doesn’t reply. Isn’t it bleeding obvious? What little strength he has, he is not going to waste on pointless chit-chat.

        Victor sits down on the bed next to him, very slowly and carefully, as if a strong impact could shatter him to pieces, which is pretty much what he looks like. He also seems too tired to stand. (Tired or whatever. Sherlock is long passed trying to decipher what people are feeling.)

        Victor scrubs his eyes and his mouth.

        “Is this fucking better than being with me?” he says after a minute, still with a thin, threadbare breath of a voice.

         Sherlock looks away. He is not discussing his auto-destructive impulses at the moment. He is not discussing _anything_ at the moment. Even if his throat wasn’t dry as sandpaper, and his head wasn’t killing him, and he wasn’t starting to slip into withdrawal, he still wouldn’t feel like talking about something that’s done and dusted and water under the bridge. Something that obviously has no turning back, whether he wants to or not.

        Victor tries and fails to stifle a sob.

        “You’re not even going to fucking talk to me?”

        Sherlock keeps staring into nothing.

        “Fine.” Victor gets up and walks away, slamming the door behind him.

 

         He _was_ being ironic, wasn’t he.

         Sherlock flops back on the bed.

         He hears some voices out in… the hall, probably. Mycroft and Victor, obviously, unless he is hallucinating again, which has been known to happen, though not necessarily at this stage.

         God, he wishes he could feel even less, because his hand, out of his own bloody accord, has just slithered to feel the spot on the bed where his ex-boyfriend’s arse has just been, to feel his warmth. And that is bloody pathetic.

 

*

         It’s been about a month.

         Mycroft lets Victor in without a word, and barely a look -he can't hold Victor's stare. And isn't that alarming.

 

        When Victor comes into the room, he is ready for what he will see, so he doesn’t appear shocked. No, he looks wretched. Which is much worse. Who would have thought.

         “Sherlock, I’m going away” he announces. Sherlock realises with a void in his stomach how much he has missed the sound of Victor’s voice.

         He looks up. Not at Victor, but not at his knees either. He feels ill and foggy, but that got his attention.

         “Go back to college, I won’t be there” says Victor.

         Sherlock licks his dry, chapped lips.

         “Where?” he manages.

         Victor clenches his jaw. Is he actually considering whether to tell him or not, wonders Sherlock. Is he afraid I’m going to follow him?

         “New York” says Victor at last.

          Sherlock doesn’t have anything to say to that.

          He sees Victor shift on his feet, hesitating. Then he leans over him and kisses his forehead. It’s a long, firm kiss. Sherlock hears him sob.

         “Goodbye, Sherlock.” His voice so soft. His voice.

 

_______

 

         When next he comes out of the guests room, stumbling a bit because, again, he hasn’t eaten in days, and has subsisted only on tea Mycroft keeps leaving for him at the door, he finds the Wallace box on the table.

         He cries for an hour straight, heaving sobs that break his back and leave him feeling crushed and sore as if he had been beaten up or run over by a lorry.

        That’s the last he cries about it, though. About pretty much anything, actually, for years to come.

 

*

 

         When Mycroft comes home later that evening, he very pointedly doesn’t comment on finding Sherlock curled in on himself in the middle of the sitting room, eyes lost into the void and unresponsive. He helps him up and half-walks him, half-carries him back to his bed, and some time later he turns up with a cup of tea.

        When he thinks Sherlock is asleep, he strokes his hair briefly, very timidly, and then he takes his place on the chair at the foot of the bed to guard his sleep. He won’t be there in the morning when Sherlock wakes up, but he will be there again the next night. Neither will ever utter one word about it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, you lovely sunshiny reader you! Leave a comment, I live for your thoughts and feedback!
> 
>  


End file.
